


Captain Hydra

by thistels



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: A lot of killing of anonymous agents, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Antisemitism, Blood, Blow Jobs, Brainwashing, Captain Hydra, Dark Steve Rogers, Dehumanization, Evil Steve Rogers, F/M, Faulty programming, Gore, Graphic description of non-con, Guns, Handler Steve Rogers, M/M, Manipulation, No Captain America, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Build, Steve is Hydra, Steve is nice to the Soldier though, Steve kills people, Violence, Waterboarding, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, because hydra, explicit description of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2018-11-10 08:53:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 79,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11123907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistels/pseuds/thistels
Summary: The story of how Steve Rogers earned the respect of HYDRA's most lethal weapon and became the Winter Soldier's handler. And of how their relationship developed into something beyond handler and asset.Steve Rogers is one of HYDRA's best soldiers and with him handling the Winter Soldier nothing can stop HYDRA from going after SHIELD and burning it to the ground. But internal power-struggles between Rumlow and the Captain threatens the organization and when Brock decides to go after the Winter Soldier to get under Steve's skin, Steve snaps and turns to old enemies in order to get his revenge.The Avengers are hesitant to let the two most lethal super-soldiers on their team but Steve and the Soldier doesn't really give them much of a choice.





	1. The Winter Soldier

**Wednesday, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4**

Steve knows that the grin on his face must be feral, but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s got the man beneath him in a deadlock, pushed down against the mat on the floor and fuck if Brock’s face isn’t turning just a shade blue. It’s satisfying as hell, being able to keep the more experienced man under him and hold him there, despite how he feels the man’s every muscle straining against his grip. In a few minutes, when Brock has tapped out, they’ll be back to business as usual. Brock is a few years older than Steve, has served in the military, been with HYDRA since birth practically and is about a million ranks above Steve. And he isn’t shy about throwing his weight around and abusing his power. Anyone else might have pulled their punches if they were in the same situation, not wanting to make their superior with a mean-streak look foolish by pinning them to the ground in fifteen minutes flat. That was never Steve’s style though, and damn if it doesn’t feel good to give a bit of payment for all the hazing Brock put Steve and the other new recruits through when they joined up two years ago.

Just when Steve starts wondering about whether or not Brock is actually going to pass out rather than admit to defeat the man taps the mat with his fingers. Steve can’t help but feel a little disappointed at Brock’s surrender, but he lets go and rolls off immediately, getting back up on his feet and extending a hand to help Brock to his feet. His opponent accepts the hand, but Steve has a feeling that it’s mostly for the benefits of their audience and more specifically Captain Walker.

“Next time.” Steve teases, because he can get away with it when Brock wants to be on good behavior in front of their Captain. They both know that Brock won’t be able to take Steve down in hand-to-hand-combat next time either, doesn’t matter if they spar a hundred times.

“Sure Rogers.” He says, clapping Steve on the back in a way that Steve knows is communicating that he’ll pay for this later. He doesn’t really mind, it’s not like Brock can to any actual damages to him. Being the golden boy and Captain Walker’s favorite has its perks.

“That was alright Rogers.” The Captain speaks and Steve knows that it was more than alright, but praise is a rare commodity within HYDRA and he’ll take what he gets. “Your technique is still lacking though, you can’t always relay on you strength.”

Steve shrugs in response. It’s true, but it’s hard to practice his technique when he’s never evenly matched with his opponents. He either has to pull his punches or slow himself down to even begin making things a fair fight, even when he’s fighting the more seasoned soldiers like Brock.

“How do you feel about a real opponent?” The Captain asks, handing Steve a bottle of water even though he’s barely out of breath. He accepts it anyway because he knows his body needs it. There’s always something his body needs, more food or more water, burning through everything he gives it at an unnatural rate these days.

“What do mean, sir?” He asks, generally confused. Sure, he’d like to try his strength against someone who could match him, but there isn’t anyone like that. SHIELD is rumored to have a few enhanced people on their team, but even though Steve is stronger than most people he’s still green and no one is ready to send him on missions to face the big guns just yet. He can’t go up against the real enemies he was made to fight before he can get some training under his belt, but he can’t get any training because there isn’t anyone who can challenge him. And that’s the core of the frustration that’s been nagging at him and his superiors ever since he was given that experimental serum from the 1940’s they’d managed to dig up from the remnants of an old Nazi-factory.

“The Winter Soldier is off ice for a mission, and we figured it would be interesting to see how you two measure up.” The Captain explains, obviously looking closely for Steve’s reaction.

“You want me to fight the Winter Soldier?” Steve asks carefully, his heart picking up speed for a few beats and Steve can’t tell if it’s from fear or excitement. Probably both – Steve felt like the two always went hand in hand for him. He should probably talk to a shrink about that.

“Well, a mock-fight. He’s programmed to not use lethal force.”

“When?” Steve asks, not doing anything to hide the anticipation in his voice. He feels like his about to start shaking with it, that he might finally go up against an opponent who he could really challenge him. He knew all about the Soldier in theory, Captain Walker is the Soldier’s handler after all and Steve knew that the serum they had given him was a lot like the one the Soldier had been given when he’d been created. But he’d never actually seen the Soldier, no one on the base except for Captain Walker and a few of the high-ups had. He’d been on ice for so long no one barely ever thought about him or talked about him.

“He’s being prepared as we speak.” The Captain says and Steve feels momentarily dizzy. A day to prepare before going up against HYDRA’s best fighter would have been nice. He barely gets a minute before the doors to the gym opens and the Soldier is brought in.

The Soldier is flanked by four guards carrying an AR-15 each, ready to fire at a moment’s notice and strapped with several other guns that Steve can make out from across the room. The Soldier doesn’t look like he’s armed at all but still manages to be the most intimidating in the company. The guards spread out in the room, one in each corner and trains their guns on the Soldier. Steve gets the feeling that they would be useless if the man decided to try his luck and take them out.

Steve watched the Soldier carefully, trying to assess the man’s fighting style the same way he was sure the Soldier was doing with him. Know your enemy, and all that. The Soldier was tall and strong, more lean than bulky and Steve guessed that in a few years he’d have broader shoulders than the other man, but now they were pretty evenly matched in body. Except for the man’s metal arm of course. It gleamed dangerously by his side, a weapon in and of itself and the fingers of it flexed, fist opening and closing, when he saw Steve looking at it. It was beautiful in a haunting, deadly way and Steve itched to touch it, feel if it felt as smooth as it looked.

He tore his eyes away from the arm when the Soldier took three long strides toward him, intense and calculating expression on his face. The lower half of it was covered by a black mask that effectively made him look like something that stepped out of a nightmare or a top-budget horror-movie. Steve had always liked horror-movies.

He didn’t retreat when the Soldier moved toward him, held his ground without flinching even if he could practically feel the adrenaline pumping in his veins. The Soldier moved effortlessly and with the grace of a large cat stalking its prey and it was captivating to watch, but Steve didn’t let himself be too absorbed in admiring the skill with which he moved. It was meant to be a distraction for sure – those who didn’t feel terror at the sight of the Soldier would surely be hypnotized by awe. As much as Steve felt like he could watch the man just move around for hours and not get bored, he also really wanted to know what it was like fighting something like that. And he wasn’t going to walk into the trap and let himself get distracted before they could even get started.

It would be standard procedure for the two of them to circle each other for a while before they really got into it and that seemed to be what the Soldier expected when he started moving again, walking slowly like he was sneaking up on his prey. Steve made a snap decision to go on the offense from the start. The Soldier would be the only one to gain something from studying Steve, Steve was at a disadvantage no matter what and he might as well use the fact that the Soldier didn’t know how he was going to fight to get the upper-hand for at least a little while. He dropped forward, rolling toward the Soldier on the ground, forcing the man to bend down if he wanted to attack and put himself off balance. For a split second Steve was pretty sure that he’d been able to catch the Soldier off guard and trick him into taking the bait, but when Steve got up to leverage his body against the Soldier and pull him over his shoulder his legs were swiped out from underneath him. He rolled away from the foot that the Soldier aimed to crush the bones in his arm with, but it was a close enough call that he felt the Soldier’s foot brush against the hairs on his arm. And the Soldier didn’t let up. If Steve had been fighting anyone else he’d have been able to catch a break and regroup, maybe even get back up on his feet, but the Soldier charged after him, just as fast as Steve. Maybe even faster.

He manages to duck a blow to his head which would have effectively knocked him out, if the gush of wind rushing by his ear as he dodges says anything about how strong the blow was. He wonder offhandedly just how specific the order to not kill him was. Did the Soldier distinguish between being alive and being functional? Did putting him in a vegetative state count as not using lethal force? The fact that Steve wasn’t completely sure about the answer to that gave him an extra push of adrenaline and it was just what he needed to up his game. He grabs the man’s arm the next time he swings and uses the force of it to pull himself off the ground, twisting away from the metal arm as it comes toward him and delivering the first solid landing punch of the fight to the Soldier’s jaw. It would have done serious damage to a normal man but the Soldier barely staggered, not losing concentration for a second.

They both block a few blows each after that and Steve feels like the bones shake inside his body with the force of each punch. It’s the most alive he’s felt in his life and he loves every second of it, even when the Soldier gets in a hard enough blow to his jaw that Steve wonders if he’ll lose a tooth over it.

His technique definitely needs work and he’s at a disadvantage against the metal arm, even if the two of them are pretty evenly matched in strength. But Steve manages to hold his own against the war-machine, though he suspects that he wouldn’t do quite as well if the Soldier had been allowed to go for the kill. The soldier gets him down on the ground at one point, his body slamming into the mat hard enough for the walls around them to start shaking. Or maybe that was just Steve’s head. The roll around, the metal gripping Steve’s right one in a grip that is impossible for him to twist out off without taking the arm clean off his body, until Steve realizes that there are no rules in this fight and he decides to play dirty. He presses his body against the Soldier to get as close to the man as possible and grabs a fistful of that shaggy brown hair and pulls like he’s trying to take man’s head off with his grip. The Soldier snarls, the first sound he’s made except for with his fists and Steve gets enough of an upper-hand to get back on his feet.

They trade blows again for a while, rapid tempo and their full strength behind each block and punch. Their dance is deadly and Steve seriously worries that despite the Soldier’s orders not to kill him he actually might if Steve lost concentration and a blow landed the wrong way, especially from the metal fist. He’s down that train of thought when something flashes in the Soldier’s eyes. He doesn’t know the man enough to be sure, doesn’t even know to what extent the Soldier has feelings at all, but it sure looked a lot like determination. Like the Soldier wasn’t just stringing Steve along and dragging their fight out, but like he just realized that there was a change he wasn’t going to win this fight if he didn’t try harder. Steve only notices it because their faces are inches apart as the Soldier just tried to head-butt him, and Steve stayed close to try and get the man into a chokehold. But he sees it, and when the left fist comes crashing toward him he knows that there is no way he’s coming back after that blow lands. He might be enhanced and have rapid healing but that thing could take out a large truck, probably even a tank. He’d have never been able to react quickly enough if he didn’t have that tiny warning, but it gave him just enough time to catch the metal of his wrist in his fist.

He realizes how it must have looked to the audience who didn’t notice the micro-changes in the Soldiers expression and decides to press his vantage like he had actually been about to catch the hand the whole time. He advances quickly, stepping on the Soldier’s foot to keep him in place and manages to dislocate the Soldier’s right shoulder by using his own body and the grip on the metal hand as leverage. The Soldier drops to his knees with a cry and Steve holds his grip, metal arm in one hand and flesh in the other, looking down on the Soldier and breathing heavy. They lock eyes for a second, but Steve swears that the murderous look flickers into respect for a second before Captain Walker barks an order in Russian and his stare goes blank as a slate. Steve immediately decides that he doesn’t like that hollow stare. He wants more of that determination that made the Soldier try and break a direct order just so he could win the fight.

He lets go of his grip on the Soldier as he feels the man’s muscles relax. Captain Walker must have ordered him to stand down, so Steve does the same. He is aware that the Soldier is tracking his every movement even as he turns to face his Captain. As he turns, he notices that the audience has become way bigger than it was when he and Rumlow practiced and he wonders distantly how long he and the Soldier fought for.

“Captain.” Steve acknowledges his mentor, noticing that he’s actually out of breath for the first time in over a year.

“Not bad Rogers, not bad at all.” That’s probably a gold star coming from a HYDRA Captain and Steve can’t help but beam a bit. He didn’t fail to notice that Brock hadn’t left when they brought the Soldier in. “You’ll be on detail for the Soldier’s next mission. We ship out at 0600, there is a briefing-package in you room.”

 “Yes sir.” Steve says, glad that those words are enough because he doesn’t think he’d be able to string together a longer sentence, because he feels that it’s all crashing down on him at once. Not only did he just fight HYDRA’s most lethal weapon and fucking won, he was also being assigned to the most high-profiled taskforce in the entire organization. Pinning Brock Rumlow to the mat would have been enough to make his whole week brighter on a normal day, now he’d almost forgotten about that completely.

His room at the base is nothing fancy, a desk, a bed, a corner to work out in with a heavy punching-bag, a huge TV-screen and a bathroom. Just what a HYDRA-soldier requires and nothing more and he all he cares about is that it’s functional. There TV-screen lights up as he comes in and he goes to stand in front of it. He says “Hail Hydra” to activate the screen and the voice-recognition-software greenlights him for access. He opens an email, typing in a request to see the surveillance tapes of his fight with the Winter Soldier from earlier and after pressing the screen a frustrating amount of times he manages to open his briefing-package and finds out how to make the file read itself out-loud to him. He’s hopeless when it comes to technology and he hates the Artificial Intelligence program that runs the system at the base. He had bribed one of the computer-engineers to make sure that the AI wouldn’t engage with him in his room a month after the base became his permanent home.

He listens as the digital voice explains the mission-goal and parameters – it’s pretty straight forward. A HYDRA resource had been compromised and apprehended by SHIELD-agents in Central America a few days ago and HYDRA wants to stop them before they can get back to the United States. Operating in places like Mexico or Eastern Europe was always preferred because they could blame their hits on gang-violence and no one ever bat an eye. Steve was just starting to wonder why this mission required Captain Walker and the Winter Soldier when a picture came up on the screen, the code-name Black Widow beside it in big block letters. If SHIELD had an equivalence of the Winter Soldier it was her. SHIELD was sending her in to meet up with the team south of the border, probably for both interrogation and transport, and there was no way the HYDRA-operative would stay quiet when faced with the Widow. The mission was to bring the scientist back to base if possible, but they if they were compromised the order was to take the man out to make sure he didn’t fall back into SHIELD’s hands. The Widow wasn’t going to be a problem since she was estimated to arrive a full day after HYDRA’s team, but all the other agents were seasoned and used to high stakes mission. Steve couldn’t really believe that he was allowed to go.

He’d been pushing Captain Walker hard to get the man to let him come on missions, to let him do something with the power they’d given him. Training with the HYDRA other agents was unsatisfying and there wasn’t really anything else to do at the base. Steve was going stir-crazy. He had no real interest in going out into the world and be a part of society the way most other agents were. The world had never been interested in him before and all he wanted to was a chance to prove himself and test the limits of the new body the serum had given him. And now he was going to get his chance, to prove that he was more than just their science experiment, that he was worthy of the second shot at life they’d given him.

A notification told him that the email he’d sent to his contact in the IT-department had been answered and he settled in on his bed to watch the recording of his and the Soldier’s fight. This time he could allow himself to watch the Soldier as the man moved, all lethal grace and deadly fierceness. It was impressive as hell, and Steve could barely keep up with how fast the both of them moved. Watching the fight he was surprised that he’d held up as good as he had, because there had been more close calls than he’d been aware of himself. But he also realized that if he’d been a bit more experienced he’d have been able to move his feet just so, or follow up one blow with another and he could have taken the Soldier down even faster than he had. Steve needed an opponent like the Soldier, and when they got back from the mission he was going to demand that they let him work with the Soldier instead of putting him back on the ice.

Steve dreamt about shaggy brown hair and flashes of metal that night, falling asleep while watching the tape on a loop, a few minutes into the fourth time of watching.


	2. the First Mission

 

**Thursday, Mission Day 1, Steve Rogers, Mexican airspace**

Steve can’t take his eyes off the Soldier for the duration of the flight. The Soldier’s discipline is nothing short of breathtaking. Since the plane lifted and Captain Walker ordered the Soldier to “Sit and stay there” he hasn’t moved a muscle, not even as much as a twitch in a finger or eyebrow. It’s as earie as it is impressive, because the Soldier is a man under the mask and metal and I-can-kill-you-with-my-pinky-glare, and men feel pain and restlessness and discomfort. But the Soldier fights through it as if he was unaffected, doesn’t once let anything show. If it wasn’t for the way his eyes moved, keeping track of everything going on around him, Steve would have been tempted to start peeling off skin to see if maybe the Soldier wasn’t a man at all, but in fact all robot.

But the Soldier’s eyes were as human as anyone’s, though admittedly holding more steel and calculation that you’re average Joe’s. At the beginning of their flight the Soldier had been staring straight ahead in the small plane, watching the back of his handler’s seat next to the pilot. Once they were in the air and the other agents on the team started discussing their mission though, those eyes became hyper focused on however was speaking at the time. Steve listened too of course, but he couldn’t stop being aware of the Soldier in the back of his mind.

When the team had exhausted the subject of their mission the Soldier kept his attention on the agents closest to him, much to the other’s discomfort. Steve estimated that it took all of ten minutes before they all started squirming under the intense and concentrated gaze of the Soldier, and then another five before they started commenting on it.

“That thing gives me the creeps, can’t we put him back in the storage-space or something?”

“Just ignore him.”

“Easy for you to say, he’s not staring at you like he’s thinking of ways to slice you up.”

“He’s not doing that, he’s not thinking about anything.”

“How do you know?”

“Cause that’s how he works, didn’t you read the file?”

“Fuck the file, he’s creepy as hell.”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“He’s totally looking at me. I swear, it’s like he remembers that time in Bulgaria.”

An exasperated sigh. “He doesn’t remember that, they wiped him.”

“Then why is he looking at me like that?”

“Soldier!”

Steve jumped a little in his seat, surprised by the intensity of the agent’s call. The Soldier didn’t flinch, but he snapped to attention quickly, his eyes going blank the same way they had been when Captain Walker had been giving him orders the day before.

“Eyes on the floor.” The soldier obeys the second the order is given, his eyes locking on the floor between his combat boots. “There, now will you shut up about it?”

The other agents went back to ignoring the Soldier the way people ignored a TV-screen that had been turned off after that. Steve bent down to re-tie the laces of his boots while the other agents discusses something he wasn’t particularly interested in. He’d never felt the need to befriend any of the other HYDRA-agents, and those he spent a lot of time around he didn’t really like. He’d never been the kind of person who was always surrounded by people though and he was used to working up to his goals in solitude. There hasn’t been too many kids interested in hanging out with the kid who always got sick and was too weak to hang out for more than an hour at a time, and before he insisted on his Ma homeschooling him from his hospital-bed he’d never been in school long enough to get to know anyone.

Which was why he was surprised when he heard one of the senior agents call him.

“Rogers!” He looked up from where he’d switched to re-checking that all of his weapons were in their places. “Is it true you kicked the Soldier’s ass yesterday?”

Steve spared a quick glance in the direction of the Soldier while he contemplated how to answer that, but it didn’t even look like the Soldier knew he was being talked about with the way he was still staring blankly into the floor of the plane.

“Nah, if he hadn’t had a no-kill-order I’m sure they’d still be wiping parts of me off the floor.” He said, turning to the agent who had spoken. He had a German accent and though Steve had never met him before he knew that he had been on at least one mission with the Soldier before today.

“That wasn’t how I saw it.” Another agent objected. “I was there, it was fucking intense. But you took him down hard.”

Steve shrugged at that. If the others wanted to think that he was good enough to take the Winter Soldier in a fight, let them, all the better for him in the end. But he wasn’t floating high on arrogance just from that one win and he wasn’t going to boost about something that wasn’t even true.

“You wouldn’t have lasted two seconds it had been a real fight.” A third agent said, his tone harsh and biting. Steve wasn’t surprised by his reaction – the man was a close friend of Rumlow’s and any friend of Rumlow was obligated to hate Steve’s guts. It was probably somewhere in the HYDRA-code-of-conduct.

“You wouldn’t last two seconds in a mock-fight though.” Steve said, feigning nonchalance as he fought a smug smile from breaking out. He’d always had a mouth that was way too big for his own good, but now that he had the body to back it up it felt damn good to be able to tell anyone who tried to knock him down off. Steve had said the exact same thing not a minute ago, hadn’t he?

The third agent went rigid with anger because not only was it an insult, but it was also an insult that he couldn’t refute. And they’d officially been on mission since they left the ground, and HYDRA had strict rules about petty fighting on missions. Personal feuds were tolerated and sometimes even encouraged during downtime, to weed out the weak, but on a mission you left your identity and your squabbles back at base. You get in the way of HYDRA’s mission you get dead, that was as certain as grass was green.

Captain Walker turned back toward them from the front before the agents could get into it though. “Landing in half an hour. Check your weapons and take position.” He ordered, and Steve and the others, including the Soldier, complied. Steve was pretty sure that the Soldier’s gaze flickered over to him for a few seconds before he turned to his weapons.

Steve was only half paying attention to his own weapons since he’s already checked them all out during the flight, and allowed himself to watch the Winter Soldier prepare for a mission. The Soldier studied his weapons with intensely focused eyes, not skipping a single step on either gun even though he carried five. His fingers worked quick but no less careful for it, just with the expertise of someone who really knew what he was doing. None of the other agents were as thorough – most of them only checked to see that their weapons were strapped on properly, some of them reloading and checking their favorite gun. There was a discipline to the Soldier which had to be admired, and Steve could easily see why the Soldier was so treasured within HYDRA.

 

**Thursday, Mission Day 1, Steve Rogers, Somewhere in Mexico**

Steve had no idea what the hell had gone wrong.

His heart was racing, beating harder than it had done when he’d been a kid hooked up to monitors in the hospital and his body was struggling to stay alive. His hand was pressed against his side, blood slowly seeping out from where a bullet had grazed the side of his chest. A SHIELD-agent had shot at him and if it hadn’t been for the serum he’d been a dead man now. He’d been able to move out of the way quickly enough that the bullet had hit his side instead of his heart, and then managed to take the agent out while the man was surprised by Steve’s dodge.

He’s currently hiding behind a black SUV, knocked to its side by the force of the Winter Soldier’s metal arm, and he doesn’t give a shit about hiding being cowardly. His fellow agents are out there engaging in a shoot-out with the unexpected SHIELD-operatives still standing. As far as Steve knew Captain Walker was down, their mics had been disabled as soon as they had come within close range to the caravan they were supposed to meet up with.

That had been the first indicator that something was wrong, but they had all been standing in troupe by then and didn’t need their coms to be able to hear each other. If it hadn’t been for the Winter Soldier’s sharp attention to details they would probably have been way worse off than they were now. The convoy transporting the HYDRA resource they were tasked with picking up came around the curve and the Soldier’s back tensed up a tiny bit after he’d studied the nearing cars for a few seconds. Steve only noticed because he was standing right behind the Soldier and Captain Walker, and after another second the Soldier spoke.

“The driver is wounded.” The Soldier said, his voice muffled by the mask he wore but clear enough for the entire team to hear. Steve shifted the grip on the gun in his hand automatically and focused his attention on the car at the front. His vision was impeccable since the serum, and he assumed that the Soldier had experienced the same enhancement. But he didn’t catch anything through the windshield at the distance and he had no idea how the Soldier could know that. He didn’t doubt the man though – there was a finality to his words that left no room for doubt and apparently the Captain shared the sentiment.

He waved for two agents to split from the group and for the rest of them to stay on the alert. The Soldier pulled an assault rifle strapped to his back over his head and took a knee on the road and when Captain Walker nodded toward the man Steve took a position behind the Soldier, covering his back and sides. The Captain himself pulled out a satellite phone and made a call which went unanswered.

The cars had been close enough to spot the team of agents when the chaos had erupted. The Soldier fired his gun, shooting out three tires on the first two cars before anyone on the team had time to blink, and Steve assumed that he’d seen the nervous look on the wounded driver’s face and at the same time Steve did and reacted appropriately. Steve had been about to open his mouth and tell the Captain Walker about his observation – there was a chain of command after all as a rookie Steve knew better than to fire at will. The Soldier didn’t have qualms like that it seemed. He didn’t seem to second-guess anything and the Captain Walker didn’t reprimand him for taking initiative.

When the first two cars started swerving on the road they were hit with a storm of bullets coming from the caravan, the tinted windows rolled down just enough to fit several guns through the cracks. One of HYDRA’s agents went down next to Steve before they could get out of the line of fire.

“Soldier, clear a path.” The Captain had ordered and the Soldier had changed weapons in a second, switching to one large gun with high capacity magazines in each hand. Steve watched with awe as the Soldier stepped back into the spray of bullets without hesitation, moving quickly but firing his guns with precision. The cars were HYDRA’s standard issue with bullet proof windows, but they shattered when the Soldier’s bullets hit strategic points. The Soldier’s metal arm turned out to be just affective as armor as it was as a weapon, sending bullets flying. But the man had to duck a few aimed at his head then when the hostiles in the vehicles started aiming for the Soldier’s limbs, slowing him down as they forced him to go on the defensive.

Steve had made a snap decision and followed the Soldier, aiming for one of the guns still firing bullets at them and effectively knocking it out of the hand of the agent holding it. The Soldier gave him half a second’s attention, probably to affirm that he knew he had backup, before going back to the task and keep firing. Things had been looking up for a minute – the two of them made a good team, superfast reflexes and enhanced vision giving them an edge over the SHIELD-agents despite the fact that the agents were hiding their cars.

Then an order came from one of the cars, a woman’s voice telling the SHIELD-operatives to stand down. The order surprised Steve enough that he held off from firing for a while, which was obviously his first mistake. The Soldier kept shooting, taking out another agent before the rooftop of one of the cars was opened and a red-haired woman climbed out.

“Вам не нужно это делать, Soldier” The woman spoke in Russian, her voice soft and inviting despite the fact that the black leather she wore from head to toe screamed assassin without mercy. She was speaking to the Soldier obviously, ignoring the team of HYDRA-agents and that’s when Steve recognized her. The woman wasn’t just any SHIELD-operative, she was the Black Widow. Defected from the KGB, assassin, spy and soldier rolled into one. Lethal, and obviously way more sneaky than she’d been given credit for. HYDRA hadn’t expected her in Mexico for another day, and Steve knew they had very well-placed agents within SHIELD. But here she was. “Вы не хотите этого делать James.” She continued and Steve realized that the Soldier hadn’t put a bullet in her yet, even though her arms were raised above her head and she was clearly vulnerable.

Steve didn’t speak a word of Russian but whatever the Widow was saying seemed to have an effect on the Soldier, because the man still hadn’t fired anymore bullets.

“Soldier!” Captain Walker shouted, fury and fear mixing in his voice in a way Steve had never heard before. Steve knew it was stupid to say that some people were never scared, everyone had their fears and weaknesses, but he had never expected that Captain Walker would be so obviously scared in the field that he let his entire team know it just by the sound of his voice. It chocked Steve to the core and he wished that he’d had more access to classified files on the Soldier. It sure seemed like the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow had met before. “Kill her!” Captain Walker called, and now that the SHIELD-agents were in a cease-fire the team took their chance to start firing back.

The Soldier hadn’t done what the Captain ordered though. He didn’t lower his guns, kept them pointing at the Widow without firing. Steve had just a second to wonder if and why the Asset seemed to malfunction before the Captain made fired a shot at the Widow. She managed to doge the bullet, rolling out of its way like it was nothing. What really set things off though, was the fact that the Winter Soldier turned around, aimed his gun at Captain Walker and fired the shot. If it hadn’t been for the serum Steve would have missed the moment the Soldier realized what he was doing and tried to twist his wrist so that the bullet wouldn’t hit its mark, snapping back into his programming. He managed to change its trajectory a bit, and the bullet hit the Captain in the side.

There had been a second of silence, deafening silence like Steve had never experienced, before a full-blown war broke out. The Solder, back with the program now, shot at the Widow, making her tumble off the roof of the car and dock behind it if she didn’t want to get hit. But Captain Walker seemed to have decided that the Soldier’s misstep made him too unreliable and aimed to put two pullets in the back of the Soldier’s head. Steve had no idea what the hell possessed him to push the Soldier out of the way of the bullets, which would most likely have hit their mark since the Asset was deeply focused on the Widow and her hiding place. The bullets hit one of the cars instead and the Soldier looked at Steve with such emotion that it made his head spin. The confusion in those steel-eyes was almost toxic, making Steve lose focus himself.

Then the Widow had crawled out from behind the SUV and started shooting at Steve and the Soldier like she didn’t care who she hit. The Soldier had dropped one of his guns and Steve had watched with fascination as the two of them engaged in hand-to-hand-combat. It was like watching a storm, knowing it was going to swallow you up anyway so you might as well marvel at the strength and intensity of it before you died. But he only got a few seconds worth of respite before on of SHIELD’s agents decided he looked like an easy target when he was distracted and then he was in the middle of the fight suddenly.

He didn’t really remember exactly how he’d made it to his hiding place behind the car where he was now. He pressed his hand harder against the wound on his side, noticing that the steady blood-flow had ceased. Thank the Nazis for expedient healing. An explosion made him wince and he tried to look through the tinted, bullet-riddled windows of the car to see the cause of it. Just like he’d suspected the Winter Soldier stepped out of the smoke, the flames of what must have been a fuel-fire rising high behind him as he reloaded his gun, eyes searching his surroundings like the world’s most dangerous predator. Probably looking for the Widow.

The Winter Soldier was obviously key. The problem and the solution. HYDRA couldn’t expect to finish their mission and live if they didn’t have the Soldier on their side, Steve knew as much. There was no way they would be able to fight off both the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow. But despite the Soldier’s initial hesitation to shoot the woman he hadn’t teamed up with her like Steve, and probably Captain Walker, had expected. He didn’t seem to be playing for either side – shooting anyone in his way no matter what organization they worked for. That was the angle Steve had to work if he wanted any chance out of this.

And he was a month shy of 23, he was not going to die in a fucking ditch by the side of the road somewhere in Mexico on his first important mission. He hadn’t fought a heart-defect, leukemia, diabetes and who knew how many other deceases and then HYDRA’s training just to end up like this. Things had just been starting to look up – he’d finally gotten a worthy opponent, someone who could make him better and give him a real challenge for a change. He wasn’t about to die before he could get the chance to prove himself and now that he’d had a taste of what the Soldier was capable of he wanted more. The asset seemed focused enough on the Widow that Steve could probably take him out, but damn if that wouldn’t be the biggest tragedy of his life. The thought of just disposing of the elegant combination of man and weapon made Steve furious and he made sure to let that feeling fuel him as he stepped out from the car and back into the action.

He took out SHIELD-agent aiming for the Soldier’s leg with a clean shot to the woman’s head and then aimed at the Widow who currently trying to saw off the Soldier’s head with a metal garrotte. He hit her in the shoulder, eliciting a bone-chilling cry as the bullet went in deep. It was all that the Soldier needed to get the upper hand, get her off his shoulders and slam her into one of the SUV’s behind him with enough force to not only put a dent in the car, but also push it back several meters. The second he’d disposed of the Widow he turned to Steve, his arm lifting to raise his gun at Steve’s head and Steve didn’t doubt that he’d be dead within a second if his half-assed-plan didn’t work.

“Stand down Soldier.” He said the words with all the ferocity and authority he could muster, betting his life on them but holding back any traces of fear or desperation. He didn’t yell or scream the order – people with real authority didn’t need to do scream to make themselves obeyed and that was all he had going for him now. He had to convince the Soldier that Steve was the one in charge, that he was superior of the two.

The Soldier’s eyes snapped up to meet his, clearly taken by the surprise. Steve didn’t breathe as he counted the seconds in his head. Two seconds in and he still hadn’t been shot while the Soldier kept staring at him. Steve poured that determination and stubbornness he was known for back at base into his posture and gaze, making it clear that he wasn’t going to back down. If the Soldier wanted to kill him he’d have to fight Steve for it, and he tried to make himself believe that he’d win so that that would show in his face. He’d done a lot of mindfulness-exercises when he was younger, alright. Believing something could make a hell of a difference.

Three seconds passed and then suddenly the Winter Soldier moved. He opened his palms and let the guns slide out of his hands onto the ground before dropping to his knees in the dirt and blood covering the road. He looked expectantly up at Steve after that, probably waiting for further orders. Steve had never felt a rush of adrenaline like that in his life. He didn’t know how long they looked at each other, neither of them willing to break eye contact, their chests heaving and the war around them coming to a stop as they seemed to be the last ones standing.

The Soldier didn’t look like a corrected dog on his knees like Steve might have expected him to. And he hadn’t reverted to that blank look he’d gotten whenever other people had ordered him around. There was still fight in his eyes, like the Soldier knew perfectly well who he was and what he was capable off, but he was letting Steve take the lead anyway. And wasn’t that something else.

A cough from the side of them made Steve snap out of the bubble he’d felt he and the Soldier had shared. “Rogers.” It was Captain Walker’s voice and Steve was torn between relief that his Captain was alive and bitterness over how the man had tried to kill the Soldier not long ago.

“Yes?” He asked, his stomach fluttering a bit at the disobedient act of not addressing the Captain with his title or Sir. But was trying to convince the Soldier that he was the one with the authority, and addressing the Captain like a superior would definitely put Steve under the Captain in ranks. And the Soldier had showed that he didn’t respect Captain Walker as much as they’d thought, so Steve figured the Soldier wouldn’t be that keen on taking orders from someone below the Captain.

“The Soldier is compromised Rogers. Kill him and call for backup.” Steve frowned at the order, annoyed that the Captain still wanted the Soldier dead. He was obeying orders fine now, wasn’t he?”

“We can bring him back in-“ Steve started to protest, cut off by Captain Walker’s cough.

“Kill him, he is way too unstable. This isn’t the first time he’s malfunctioned. He’s a broken weapon, you don’t keep those around Rogers.” The Captain said, finality in his voice and Steve had to assume that the other higher-ups at HYDRA shared the sentiment. He didn’t know how they could look at the Soldier and see something broken though. Even when he’d been completely turned around as to who was an ally and who was an enemy he’d been deadly and precise, fighting like a machine.

“I’m not going to kill him.” Steve argued, well aware that the Soldier’s eyes were on him, following the conversation no doubt.

“Rogers, I will have you demoted so far for this you’ll be chained to desk-“ Steve didn’t stop to think twice about the impulse running through his body at the Captain’s threat. He walked toward the man before he’d even gotten half a sentence out, reaching down to the ground to pick up a standard SHIELD-issue-gun from the ground and put a bullet in the Captain’s head. He made sure to aim it at an angle, so that it would look like the bullet had been fired at a moving target rather than between the eyes like a clean execution which might have raised some red flags.

Then the Soldier moved, lashing out to his side as quick as lightning, and fisting his left hand in a head of red hair. He disarmed the Widow efficiently, not only grabbing the gun in her hand but also stripping her off no less than three well-hidden knives. They were bound to have known each other at some point for the Soldier to know about those hiding places, what with the woman’s leather combat-suit fitting to the curves of her body like a second skin.

“Сволочь” She said, Steve guessed it was a curse, struggling against the Soldier as she looked between them with murder in her eyes. He was glad that the Soldier looked confident as he held her. Despite the still bleeding gunshot to the shoulder she seemed just as lethal as she’d been before, capable of doing just as much damage.

The Soldier ignored her as she kept cursing in Russian, looking at Steve for orders. He considered his options carefully. On one hand he could try and take her prisoner, HYDRA would surely be over the moon if they got their hands on the Black Widow. But she’d seen him kill Captain Walker and she knew about the Soldier’s malfunction. If they tortured her and she spilled those things it wouldn’t have mattered that Steve went against direct orders and straight up killed his Captain. He would be living through way worse than being chained to a desk somewhere in a HYDRA basement for the rest of his life, however long the serum would make him live.

And she’d managed to derail the Soldier from his mission once already, keeping her alive would be a big risk for a repeat of that. He hesitated to kill her though, since that was what had set the Soldier off from the start.

“Do you want to kill her?” Steve asked the Soldier, keeping his tone neutral. It wasn’t just a precaution to let the Soldier make the decision, he was genuinely curious.

The Soldier frowned, looking from the woman to Steve, obviously struggling to make a decision but that made it for Steve. If you weren’t sure you wanted someone dead the answer was no.

“Don’t come after us. Stay away from us. I’m only doing this because of him, and the next time he sees you he might not remember you. And then I won’t hesitate to kill you.” He said to the woman, mildly amused by the surprise she wasn’t quite able to mask at his words. “Dislocate her shoulder and knock her unconscious.” He ordered the Soldier, leaving him to the task before walking around the site.

He found the resource that HYDRA had brought in dead in one of the SUV’s, relieved that he didn’t have to kill him and tell HYDRA another lie. He retrieved one of the guns he’d dropped in the fight, swore when he saw that Captain Walker’s sat-phone was riddled with bullets, and picked up the Soldier’s rifle from the ground.

“We need to clean this up.” Steve said mostly talking to himself when he came back to the Soldier, the Widow unconscious by his feet. But the Soldier answered by pulling out three grenades from his pocket, his eyes smiling wickedly from behind the hair that had fallen into his face and the expression made Steve feel strangely excited about explosions. He’d never actually liked bombs and blowing things up, preferring hand to hand combat before loud and messy and unreliable things like grenades. But the Soldier looked like a kid at Christmas morning or something and it was rubbing off on Steve. Besides, cooking the place in grenade-fire was just the thing they needed to wipe away enough evidence that his story would be believable.

They moved away from the wrecked cars and bodies littering the ground, the Soldier dragging the still unconscious Widow by the hair. “You know we’re probably going to regret keeping her alive right?” Steve said, again, more to himself than to the Soldier really and this time the Soldier didn’t answer or acknowledge him. He just turned his upper body, throwing the grenades at the wreckage in rapid succession. They started running at the same time to get as far away from the blast as they could before the explosions made their ears ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a google-translate for the Russian so it might not be that accurate.
> 
> Вам не нужно это делать – You don’t need to do this.  
> Вы не хотите этого делать – You don’t want to do this  
> Сволочь – Scum/Bastard


	3. the Desert

**Friday, Mission Day 2, Afternoon, Steve Rogers, Mexican wasteland**

 “I see one more tumbleweed and I’ll shoot it.” Steve announced as he saw the eight ball of dead grass and roots rattling along the road that afternoon. The Soldier didn’t reply – hadn’t replied to a single one of Steve’s offhanded comments the entire walk and he’d stopped expecting an answer really. But he was growing bored out of his mind with walking through the monotone desert landscape and talking to himself was better than nothing. He didn’t doubt that the Soldier was listening to him though – the man turning his head to look at Steve each time he spoke before turning his attention back to the road when he wasn’t given an order.

They’ve been walking without the landscape around them changing for two hours, if the state of the sun in the sky was anything to go by. With no working sat-phones and all the vehicles being blown up their only choice had been to follow the road and hope to reach civilization soon. HYDRA had picked the spot for their mission carefully though, making sure that it was as far away from any major city as possible as to not draw too much attention to them. Which was a good strategy, but Steve was cursing it now.

The wound in his side where he’d been shot had healed up, the undershirt sticking uncomfortably to his skin and other than that he didn’t have any major injuries. Once they got away from the wreckage of the failed (or successful depending on how you saw it, the threat to HYDRA’s activities being exposed had been eliminated after all) mission Steve had suggested they kept jogging, so that they’d get to a town as quickly as possible. He knew his own body wouldn’t have a problem running miles in the heat, even after a fight like that, and the Soldier hadn’t complained. But after having put a lot of ground behind them they still didn’t see any signs of human activity and they’d slowed down to a walk to preserve their energy.

Now Steve’s stomach was growling annoyingly, hungry from repairing itself and the workout. He’d been hungry since the adrenaline from the fight started wearing off, several miles back on the road but he’d tried to ignore it and save what little emergency provisions he had left for when he _really_ needed it. The sun and the frustration was making him lose his patience though, and a few minutes he went to dig the two protein-bars he kept in a pocket of his pants out.

They’re put together by some HYDRA scientist who keeps bugging Steve to spend entire days in the lab like a lab-rat. They contain enough carbs and nutrients to feed a grown man for two days and tastes like sawdust. Steve makes sure to always have at least one on him whenever he leaves the base because his body needs a lot of fuel to be able to operate at the level he pushes it to.

He extends one of the bars to the Soldier, figuring that they have the same serum and the man is probably just as hungry as Steve is by now. But the Soldier doesn’t accept it like Steve expects, he studies it as Steve holds it out. Steve tries to read the man’s expression, but it’s hard when half of his face is still covered by the mask. He thinks that the Soldier looks suspicious at the offer of food, and that doesn’t sit quite right with Steve. He’d already felt a bit uneasy about the way the other agents had been talking about the Soldier on the flight, and the way Captain Walker had referred to him as nothing more than a weapon.

Sure, the Soldier might be a weapon, they were all weapons in HYDRA’s eyes, but only a really stupid soldier would treat his weapons badly. Especially their best weapon. Weapons should be treated with care and respect, kept in top-shape at all times or who knew when it might fail you in a time of need.

“Take it.” Steve encouraged the Soldier, not quite making it an order just yet.

“I’m functional without it.” The Soldier said, his voice hoarse from disuse and slightly distorted by the mask covering his nose and mouth.

“If your body is anything like mine you’re probably starving.” The Soldier still hesitated, his brows setting in a determined manner, like he recognized the truth in Steve’s word but wasn’t going to let his body show any weakness anyway. A smile tugged on Steve’s lips at the reaction – he knew the sentiment all too well, it had been his constant expression when he was a sickly kid. A doctor told him to take something for his pain and it just made him more stubborn and eager to prove to everyone that he didn’t need it, he could handle it just fine even if he was in pain and he wasn’t going to let his fragile body run his life.

“I don’t know how long we’ve got until reach a city but I need you to be able to keep up with me, and you can’t do that if you don’t have any energy.” He reasoned, and the logic of that seemed to get through to the Soldier, at least his expression softened a bit and he looked like he was considering taking the bar. Then the man’s stomach growled and Steve watched as the Soldier backtracked and decided not to let his body have that kind of power over him.

“That’s an order, Soldier.” Steve said, his voice soft and steel at the same time, not giving the Soldier a choice to disobey while at the same time trying to convey that he wasn’t angry or displeased. Powering up made more sense than proving a point on mind versus body, especially when they were in foreign territory with no way of communicating back to HYDRA.

“Yes, Sir.” Steve frowned a bit at being called sir, especially when it was accompanied by that blank expression on the Soldier’s face. Like he didn’t question Steve’s rank or authority, and sure, that might be a good thing for Steve in their current situation. But he hadn’t proved himself enough to the Soldier, himself or anyone else yet to be afforded with a title. If anything, the Winter Soldier was the one who deserved Steve’s respect.

But the Soldier did as he’d been told, taking the bar from Steve’s hand slowly, his eyes locking with Steve’s as the fingers closed around the plastic packaging like he was looking to make sure that that was what Steve had meant with his order. Steve let him take the bar and then watched the Soldier hold it awkwardly as he peeled of the wrapper while studying it, holding it in front of him when he was done. The behavior perplexed Steve for a minute before he realized what the Soldier was waiting for. He obviously couldn’t eat through the black mask covering his face, and removing his armor would be something he needed clearance for.

“Take of the mask and eat it. All of it.” Steve said, his voice still soft before starting in on his own bar. The Soldier does what he’s told, still looking a bit suspicious as to why Steve is sharing his food with him. At least he ate it though, so Steve doesn’t press the issue. The food does him well, even though he would have literally killed for some water to wash it down with.

He puts the wrapping in his pocket, doesn’t want to leave any trace of HYDRA and you can never be too careful. And so what if he happens to be a trained soldier who killed at least four people before lunch today, he’s allowed to care about the environment and the state of the planet, alright. Then he picks up the pace, taking longer steps because he is itching to get out of this desert. The Soldier falls into the new tempo after just a second, adjusts his steps to the rhythm of Steve’s so that he isn’t moving a second faster or slower. They match up well and Steve really likes that he can stretch his legs and walk at his own pace without having to slow down to let his company catch up.

But after what is about an hour the Soldier’s pace starts to falter, much to Steve’s surprise. He isn’t anywhere near tired, could probably walk at this pace through the night if it meant getting back to civilization. The Soldier shouldn’t be tired either, but it’s obvious that he is. He’s struggling to keep up with Steve, failing even that and falling behind several paces. Steve stops, watches relief flicker over the Soldier’s face for a fraction of a second before it’s reigned in and replaced with a blank expression. He’s put the mask back on again after he finished the protein-bar, but his eyes are incredibly expressive even when they gloss over like that while he awaits an order to fill them.

“Are you hurt?” Steve asks him, looks the Soldier up and down and can’t find anything obviously wrong with him. His combat pants and vest are stained with blood but there aren’t any huge tears suggesting a major injury, and he should have healed from any minor ones by now just like Steve had. Of course, something could be broken, but if the Soldier has managed this long with a broken limb there is no way Steve is going to keep believing that he’s human.

“I’m functional, Sir.” The Soldier answers, tilting his chin up a bit, stubbornly, like Steve is trying to insult him.

“Functional my ass.” Steve mutters and briefly wonders if this is how his Ma felt whenever he told her that he was fine even though he was clearly in pain when the doctors prodded him. The Soldier narrowed his eyes, obviously glaring at Steve.

“If you were functional you’d be able to keep up wouldn’t you?” Steve said bantered, no real heat behind his words. He’d meant for the Soldier do concede to his logic and admit that he needed a break, but he’d obviously underestimated the man.

The Soldier pushed past him, the shove to Steve’s shoulder clearly not a mistake and Steve laughed to himself as the man got a head start. He seemed to overcome whatever had made him slow down with ease, and Steve didn’t fail to notice that they were walking just a little bit faster now that the Soldier set the pace than they had when Steve had been leading. Steve wasn’t the only one who was stubborn to a fault apparently. He didn’t complain though – if a bit of friendly competition was what was going to get them out of the desert as fast as possible he was going to drive it up another notch.

They pushed each other silently, picking up the pace minutely every now and then until the next time one of them accelerated it would force them to break out into a jog or they’d look like those ridiculous people competing in professional walking. Steve’s chest was heaving, his lungs feeling wonderfully constricted. He’d had very few opportunities to test the limits of his new body since both he and the HYDRA scientists had grown bored when he wasn’t looking even a bit strained after hours on a treadmill. And it wasn’t like he could run around in the open at full speed without raising suspicion. Feeling fire building in his lungs now was a rush as he saw how much he was capable of doing compared to when laughing to hard sent him into an asthma-attack.

Steve did consider that it might not have been the wisest decision to exert themselves like this, but he didn’t really expect that they’d run into any kind of trouble that he and the Soldier couldn’t handle, even if they were worn out. And he was getting fucking sick of the desert. He was just about to push the both of them into a jog again, the belief that they’d been walking for so long now that they couldn’t possibly be far from civilization by now giving him an extra boost of energy. But after just a few steps he stopped dead in his tracks, taken by surprise by the cry the Soldier let out just behind him. It was a terrible, tortured sound, especially coming from someone like the Soldier.

Steve turned immediately to the man, who was folded in on himself, back hunching over his thighs as he leaned to his side to take as much weight at he could off of his right leg. He wasn’t crying, but the parts of his face which were visible behind strands of hair and mask were scrounged up in pain.

“Functional huh?” Steve bit out, concern bleeding into his voice without him meaning to let it out. The Soldier raised his eyes to meet Steve’s, full on deadly glare in them. Steve couldn’t tell if it was because the man didn’t appreciate Steve’s attempt at dry humor or if it was because he hated being looked at like he was vulnerable. Probably the latter, because Steve could be hell ’a funny when he wanted to.

“Where are you hurt?” Steve inquired, stepping closer to the Soldier to get a better look at the man. The Soldier flinched backward at Steve’s advances though, putting the same amount of distance if not more between them.

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you.” Steve said, holding his palm out. “I just wanna know what we’re dealing with here. Can’t have you collapse on me.” The Soldier’s posture was ridged and he clearly wasn’t keen on letting Steve in on the damages.

“I can keep going.” The Soldier said through his teeth, slightly short of breath.

“I’m sure you can.” Steve said honestly, because he didn’t doubt that the Soldier would be able to push through if he really had to. It was obvious by the way he was keeping his weight of his leg that he had to have been hurting pretty bad ever since they finished the mission, and he’d pushed through this far. It was also obvious that whatever was making him stop now was pretty serious. “We’re not taking another step until you tell me though.”

No answer.

“Look I’ll make it an order if I have to, but I’d prefer you just tell me so I can help.” He tried, feeling a bit like he was coaxing an insolent child. He didn’t get a reaction though.

“Soldier, damage report.” He ordered after a few seconds of silent debate with himself, his hands on his hips as he stood tall, making sure that the Soldier knew he’d lost the option to refuse. Ordering the man around when he knew that the Soldier wouldn’t be able to refuse wasn’t exactly ideal but they couldn’t exactly wait around in the desert until the man felt like sharing either. Especially not if he was anywhere close to being as stubborn as Steve - they’d starve to death first.

“Two lacerations on the left shoulder blade, they will heal within a few hours. Fourth and fifth fingers on the right hand are broken at the second knuckle, they won’t limit my ability to fire a gun. Left ankle has a light sprain. It will be healed soon. I took a bullet to the right thigh, it’s in deep but there is no major damage to the nerves and the bleeding has mostly stopped. Sir.”

Steve had to force his jaw to close before he breathed in a mouthful of desert-dust as the Winter Soldier started rattling off his injuries like he was reading the weather-prognosis for the weak. Not only had he been walking with a sprained ankle that entire day, he _had a fricking bullet in his thigh_. That was seriously fucked up. And impressive as hell. But mostly fucked up.

“You… Christ, sit down.” He said once he was capable of speech again.

The Soldier lowering himself to the ground with perfect balance as he bent his left knee with the right one still in the air. The left leg which was sprained. The pose was something straight out of an advanced yoga-class and the Soldier wasn’t even a bit off balance.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Steve asked, feeling mildly sick over the fact that he’d just forced the man to walk for hours on injuries like that. Winter Soldier or not, he obviously felt pain even though he seemed determined to pretend otherwise. There was pushing your way through pain and then there was _this_. He doubted that even the most devoted man in HYDRA would look down on anyone for admitting defeat at something like this, and the organization’s motto was that ‘order comes from pain’, for God’s sake.

“You didn’t ask, Sir.” The Soldier’s frown implying that that should have been obvious to Steve.

“I-“ Steve suddenly realized that he was in way over his head. He hadn’t thought twice about bringing the Winter Soldier with him out in the middle of the desert just like he wouldn’t hesitate to have brought another one of his teammates. But it became more and more obvious that the Soldier wasn’t like any other man. The way he followed orders and didn’t complain even though he had to have been in a lot of pain made that clear. Steve had the sneaking suspicion that if he ordered the Soldier to push through the pain the man would. He suppressed a shudder at the thought and remembered the way the other agents had talked about the Soldier back at the plane, and he was glad he was the one who was left with the Soldier.

“We’re taking a break.” He decided, sitting down next to the Soldier by the side of the road. He ignored the look the Soldier gave him, like the man was surprised that Steve had chosen to sit down next to him instead of on the opposite side of the road or something.

“I don’t need a break.” The Soldier muttered after a few seconds and Steve chose to ignore that too. The man could be as stubborn as he wanted, but there was no way he was going to out-do Steve at his own game. He barely registered that the Soldier didn’t address him with a Sir that time.

The Soldier started digging around in his boots then, coming up with a large hunting knife which he extended to Steve, hilt first. In his other hand was a small lighter.

“What do you expect me to do with this?” Steve asked hesitantly, because he had a pretty good idea of what the Soldier was aiming at but just the thought made his stomach turn.

“Cut the bullet out and seal the wound.” The Soldier said, his voice calm and level like he suggested Steve put a Band-Aid on a papercut or something. Like he was actually expecting Steve to do it, to extend the wound deep enough that he root around for the bullet lodged deep into the tissue of the man’s thigh without anesthetics.

“I’m not doing that.” Steve said, the words coming out way harsher than he’d meant for. The Soldier studied him for a second before nodding in a resigned way, his eyes steel as he twirled the knife around in his hand and moved to cut through the fabric of his pants. Steve lunged at him, gripping the wrist holding the knife before it could cut through the blood-soaked material, making the Soldier flinch and go rigid. Steve didn’t know if it was because of the contact or the suddenness of the movement but he didn’t really reflect on it for long. The Soldier had been about to start some kind of barbaric field-operation on himself by the side of the road in a very non-sterile desert and that was just about too much for Steve to handle.

“Christ, what are you doing?” Steve’s voice didn’t tremble, but it was a close call.

“I will do it myself. It won’t be as efficient-“

“No.” Steve interrupted before he could hear more about the Soldier’s readiness to stick a knife in thigh for no good reason. “I didn’t mean for _you_ do it. I meant no one is cutting into anyone. Gees.” He took the knife from the Soldier, a bit surprised that the man simply gave the weapon up, but it wasn’t like he was left unarmed.

“We’re going to keep going, and you’re going to keep as much weight off your leg as you can. We can’t be far off from a community now. Come on.” He got up on his feet, not bothering to brush of the dust from his clothes as he extended his hand to help the Soldier up. He wasn’t even surprised that the Soldier didn’t reach to accept the offered hand. Instead, when the man was busy lifting himself off the ground and concentrated on not putting any weight the wrong way, Steve lodged himself under the man’s right arm, forcing the Soldier to accept his support.

The Soldier glared at him as he put his arm around his back and leveraged himself to take most of the man’s weight. Steve glared back – challenging the Soldier to be stupid enough to fight only to then have to walk by himself in pain. For a while it looked like that was exactly what the Soldier was going to do and Steve prepared himself to block a punch, but then the other man let out an exasperated breath and molded himself into Steve’s side.

It was obvious that the Soldier wasn’t comfortable being helped or being so close to Steve, and Steve really hated the idea of forcing himself into someone’s space when they didn’t want him there. The Winter Soldier couldn’t refuse orders, everyone knew that – that was one of the things that made him such a resource to HYDRA. They could train their agents and soldiers with as much discipline and pain as they wanted, but when it came down to it each man was their own and that complicated a lot of missions. With the Soldier they didn’t have to worry about mutiny and rebellion, because he couldn’t disobey orders. Or he wasn’t supposed to be able to do that anyway – he’d obviously shown that there was an exception to every rule that morning. But taking advantage of something like that when it obviously wasn’t what the Soldier wanted made guilt tear at Steve’s insides with its sharp claws.

But it couldn’t be helped now – they needed to get off the road and hind a way to contact HYDRA. He hadn’t forgotten that they’d left one of the most dangerous agents in the world alive just a few hours down the road, and sure she might be injured and on her own but Steve knew better than to underestimate the Black Widow by now. Especially since he’d seen that she seemed to have some kind of influence on the Soldier.

They had to walk slowly enough to grate both of their nerves, and it took a bit of figuring out until the learned to sync each other’s movements enough to walk smoothly. Steve half expected that he was going to get shivved in the side by one of the Soldier’s knives while they stumbled over each other, but eventually they found a comfortable rhythm and twenty minutes later they saw the neon-light if a building up ahead. Steve had barely noticed that the sun had gone down.


	4. the Gas-station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me a while to finish this chapter!

 

**Thursday, Mission Day 2, Evening, Steve Rogers, a gas-station, Mexico**

The gas-station is manned by a boy in his late teens, maybe early twenties and he’s easy enough for the two Super-soldiers to take care of even though one of them is currently wounded. Steve had wanted to suggest that the Soldier go in the front while he snuck around the back and ambushed the cashier himself. But once they’d re-conned the place the Soldier’s face had slipped into that blank mask of obedience and he’d disappeared from Steve’s side before Steve could blink. Like a mission was enough to make him forget the pain that had almost crippled him minutes before. Steve had had to half carry and half drag the man the last few minutes leading up to the gas-station but at the inhale of a breath he’d walked straight and slipped away without even a trained agent with enhanced senses noticing.

When Steve got through the front door of the small store the Soldier was standing over the boy’s body, his face still blank like he was waiting for Steve to give him another order. Like he wasn’t in pain, like he didn’t have a bullet in his leg. Like he’d fight another battle or run a mile of Steve told him to. It was just as impressive as it was eerie, reminding Steve to not underestimate the Winter Soldier.

When Steve walked up to the Soldier the man presented him with a phone that looked way to sophisticated and high-tech for a Mexican teenager who worked at a gas-station. It was Stark-tech – not on the market for private use but standard issue for every SHIELD-agent in the field. It was a good think the Soldier had killed the boy before he could use it and call for reinforcements from SHEILD.

Steve studied the body at the Soldier’s feet for a few seconds, noting the absence of blood. A broken neck was cleaner, they wouldn’t have to step around pools of blood, and it wasn’t as loud as a gunshot. It was a smart choice, Steve would have used the same method. Quick and painless as opposed to if another HYDRA-agent had gotten his hands on the boy. Steve did consider the fact that maybe HYDRA would have wanted them to keep the boy alive and bring him back to base for interrogation, but he seriously doubted that the boy was involved with SHIELD. Most likely the Americans had slipped him the phone and some money when they came that way, asking him to use the phone if anyone who wasn’t them came by.

“Good job.” He told the Soldier, not failing to notice how the empty stare dropped and was replaced by that intense look that he started to equate with the Soldier’s personality as the man’s eyes snapped up to meet Steve’s.

“Get on the counter and lie back, I’ll check for some supplies and then we’ll get the bullet out.” He said conversationally, more of a suggestion than an order, but the Soldier did as he’d been told anyway. Steve chose to hope that it was because his argument made sense and not because the man had taken it like an order.

He took a trip up and down the shelves in the small store, finding way too many types of candy and not enough useful things for a location this remote in the Mexican desert. But there were tweezers, plenty of alcohol and gauze at least. He looked at the painkillers when he passed them but didn’t bring them up front with him. He needed the equivalent of a horse-tranquilizer to feel even a little numb himself and there was no way the Soldier was going to be comfortable even if he downed every single pain-pill in the place with a bottle of whiskey.

The counter is small and a bit too short for the Winter Soldier. Steve has to rip the cash-register’s electrical cords from the wall and put it on the floor for the Soldier to be able to lie comfortably. And to say that the Soldier was laying comfortably then would be a stretch – the man’s body strung tight as a bow like he’s expecting Steve to take advantage of his weakened state and hurt him the second he lets his guard down. He clearly hasn’t gotten the memo about the two of them being on the same team. Steve can’t help but wonder if it’s him specifically, or if the Soldier is this paranoid around all HYDRA-agents.

The Soldier struggles to lean up by the back of his arms so he can keep an eye on everything Steve does, but the strain on his muscles looks uncomfortable as hell, so Steve puts a hand to the Soldier’s chest to push him back. He doesn’t go until Steve puts the entirety of his strength behind his push though, and even then Steve suspects that it’s only because the Soldier is wearing out from the pain in his wounds.

“I ain’t gonna lie, this is gonna hurt and I’m no doctor so it won’t be pretty.”

“Just do it.” The Soldier says, voice calm like he isn’t about to be cut into and have field-surgery in a gas-station.

Steve moves to unbuckle the toolbelt fastened around the Soldier’s hips, but is immediately stopped when the metal arm grabs his wrist in a death-grip, hard enough that Steve can feel the bones grinding together under his skin.

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you, remember? I just gotta get your pants off so I can get to the wound.” Steve manages in a steady voice. He isn’t actually scared of the Soldier – he’s not sure if he’d be able to take him if the Soldier decided Steve was a threat, but he’s not afraid. Has never been afraid of death or pain really.

The Soldier doesn’t speak, doesn’t release Steve’s wrists either. He considers his options since the Soldier isn’t on the attack just yet. He could try and break out of the hold, would probably break his wrist in the process though and then they’d both be incapacitated if the Black Widow or more SHIELD agents caught up with them before HYDRA could extract them. He could order the Soldier to release him, but he didn’t want to do that either. It felt like a violation, an intrusion of the man’s privacy. The Soldier was hurt and vulnerable and at Steve’s mercy, but he didn’t trust Steve enough to be unarmed while he was at a disadvantage. Forcing him into that situation against his will was way worse than ordering him to go out into battle without asking his opinion on the war. So he went out on a limb and tried a wild-card, proving all those people who called him wreckless right.

“James.” He said, testing the name the Widow had called him out. It didn’t get him a reaction the first time, but he kept going the Soldier softened a bit, the fingers around Steve’s wrist uncurling with whirring and clicking sounds. “James, it’s alright. You’re safe with me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The Soldier seemed confused by his own reaction, staring at Steve with a kind of desperate plea in his eyes. Like he was begging Steve to make sense of something.

“James?” He asked tentatively. He had no idea of what to make of that expression or what action might set the Soldier off. He seemed… fragile like this, in a way he hadn’t even when Steve had had to drag most of his weight around the desert because he was injured.

“Please don’t.” The Soldier said, after a few seconds, his soft and hesitant, shaking a bit around the words like he didn’t know if he was allowed to ask such a thing. His flesh hand (the one with two broken fingers) curled around the buckle of his toolbelt, conveying his desperate wish to keep his weapons on him. But the metal arm returned to his side, releasing Steve’s wrist before he had promised not to take the belt off by force. Like the Soldier was telling Steve that he wouldn’t fight him if Steve tried again. Steve wanted to cringe how vulnerable it made the Soldier.

“Anything you’re comfortable with.” Steve said, trying to assure the Soldier but only receiving a guarded, apprehensive stare.

“I’ll just… cut your pant-leg off then.” He mused out loud, reaching to his own hip to pull a knife out and start cutting into the Soldier’s uniform. He found an additional gun and a small knife on the Soldier as he exposed his leg and put them on the man’s chest where he could still feel them. 

Once the wound was exposed he opened one of the bottles of liquor and poured its content on the Soldier’s pale thigh. An impressive amount of blood had caked and dried, making it practically impossible to identify an entry-point for the bullet. He might not even have thought that there was one if the Soldier hadn’t told him.

It had to have hurt, but the Soldier didn’t even give as much as an involuntary muscle-spasm as Steve used the discarded pant-let to wipe his leg down.

Steve prodded the area around the small, already healing entry-wound as gently as he could while still being effective, checking if he could feel the bullet’s exact position. He couldn’t of course, because this was that kind of day.

“I’m going to have to make a bigger incision.” Steve sighed after a while, leaning up to gauge the Soldier’s reaction. The man raised a silent eyebrow and Steve almost laughed at how loud the ‘I told you so, didn’t I’ was without the Soldier speaking a single word. The man’s eyes were expressive in a way he’d never noticed with other people.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s healed up even more now and gotten smaller than it was back in the desert, but I don’t regret anything. You’ll thank me when you don’t get desert-dust in it and die from infection.” Of course, the argument didn’t mean much to neither Steve nor the Soldier, they wouldn’t die of something as petty as an infection and they both new it. But Steve wasn’t about concede, he’d been right to wait.

The Soldier didn’t give an inch though, eyebrow rising a little more, clearly conveying that he still thought _he_ was right and Steve was stupid for not realizing it.

“You saying I’m stubborn?” Steve chuckled, receiving a deadpan look he took as confirmation. “Yeah well, that doesn’t make you a genius or nothing, so don’t let it get to you head.” He said, not really expecting a laughter or anything from the Soldier but still feeling a little disappointed when he joke didn’t seem to register.

Then he took a deep breath and refocused on the task at hand, spilling liquor over the blade of one of his finer knives. He could bond with his teammate at a time when they weren’t injured.

“Do you want me to count or do you want to be surprised?” Steve asked, because he was concerned, not at all because he was stalling. (He was stalling a bit.)

“Tell me when.” The Soldier asked, his voice low and soft, like he was still asking for permission, wondering if the answer had been acceptable. Steve nodded and studied the wound for a while before he felt sure he’d picked the best place to cut into.

“On three.” He said, the knife hovering an inch above the Soldier’s thigh.

On two the mechanics in the Soldier’s left arm whirred and clicked nervously and his thigh tensed up, like he expected Steve to surprise him anyway. He didn’t – he’d hated the nurses and doctors who’d done that when he was a patient, even though they insisted it was less painful that way. It wasn’t about pain, it was about control, he’d tried to explain to them to no avail.

Instead he put his free hand on the Soldier’s knee in what was supposed to be a soothing gesture, but based on the dark look the man gave him it was anything but. He removed his hand and limited the contact between their bodies to what was only necessary. He might have imagined the relief on the Soldier’s face.

Then he counted to three and pressed the knife in.

Cutting through flesh and muscle was like slicing butter with a hot knife with his strength, and the Soldier held completely still. Didn’t even make a sound as the knife went in deep. It took Steve way longer to find the bullet than he was comfortable with and he didn’t know who was more pale by the time he felt the knife hit metal.

“Got it.” Steve said, unnecessarily and traded the knife for the pair of tweezers.

The Soldier did make a hurt sound when he pushed those in, digging deep into the fabric of muscle, tissue and most likely several nerves. Any normal person would have fainted from the pain by now, Steve wasn’t sure that _he_ wouldn’t have fainted. Hell, if he was honest with his lack of medical experience he would probably have killed any normal person by now. But the Soldier didn’t complain, his eyes set in determination to tough it out.

Once Steve was sure he had the bullet in a firm grip that wouldn’t slip even with the flowing blood slicking it up he met the Soldier’s eyes, wordlessly asking for permission to pull it out. The Soldier nodded decisively and held Steve’s eyes without blinking as Steve pulled the bullet out with a yank of his arm.

 

**Thursday, Mission Day 3, Early morning, Steve Rogers, a gas-station, Mexico**

The gas station had a small office in the back where Steve had suggested they camp out while they waited for HYDRA to come get them. Contacting their base had taken almost two hours, the usual channels you had to go through if you called from a landline abroad infuriatingly slow and unnecessarily complicated. But they’d finally communicated their location and been told to wait for extraction.

When Steve had explained that no, Captain Walker couldn’t call from his sat-phone because SHIELD-agents had killed the man he’d been connected a French division of HYDRA. Apparently the agent on the other end had been the Soldier’s handler for a while and was currently the most equipped at giving Steve advice on how to properly handle the Winter Soldier now that Captain Walker wasn’t around. Steve didn’t even feel remotely bad when he realized that he’d already broken over half of the protocol the French agent explained to him. He listened to the agent firmly advising him against engaging the Soldier in any sort of communication while he fiddled with the cord connecting the phone to the wall.

The Soldier was sitting in a chair across the desk, the one closest to the door. Steve had compromised on letting the Soldier have that chair when the man had initially moved to stand in a corner, acting like he was deaf and dumb on purpose when Steve reminded him that the wound in his leg hadn’t even stopped bleeding properly yet for crying out loud. Letting the Soldier have the chair next to the door was the only way Steve had gotten him to even consider sitting down, unless he’d wanted to wrestle the man. The Soldier was staring at the wall with that blank expression again, looking like a blank slate, void of emotions and thoughts, but no less deadly for it.

The call ended when the French agent started instructing Steve to punish the Soldier for a failed mission though. Steve hadn’t told him the true extent of what had happened of course, only saying that they were ambushed by the Black Widow and that the Soldier had had his hands full with her and that she’d been able to escape. The agent insisted that this was a failure by the Soldier and that he had to be properly punished so that it wouldn’t happen again. He was starting to talk Steve through the most effective way to administer a mock-downing when suddenly the line went quiet. Steve held the phone to his ear for a couple of seconds, waiting for the agent continue before he became aware of the Soldier’s eyes on him. He looked down to see that he’d snapped the phone-cord in two while listening to the Frenchman.

The look that the Soldier’s was giving him was something between puzzled and calculating, like he was trying to figure Steve out, but couldn’t. Steve shrugged and leaned back in his chair as he put the phone on the table. The Soldier tensed up a bit when Steve’s full attention was directed toward him, though Steve doubted that the man was even aware of his body’s reaction.

“I ain’t gonna to water-board you.” Steve felt compelled to say, not sure if the Soldier had been listening to his conversation with the French agent or if his mind had been as blank as his face. He felt certain that the Soldier wasn’t supposed to listen to any conversation that wasn’t a discussion about a mission or a direct order, but it was obvious that there was more to the Soldier than a thoughtless machine. He had a will of his own, however tied down it might be under programming and orders.

The Soldier didn’t comment on Steve’s promise, and he didn’t relax in his seat either. But he did frown a bit, studying Steve just as intensely as before. They sit in silence for a while, none of them even suggest sleeping. Steve is tired, and the Soldier is bound to be too. But Steve is pretty certain that if he wanted the Soldier to sleep he’d have to order him to, and he’s already decided that that method was a last resort only. And if the Soldier wasn’t going to get any rest it would be unfair of Steve to sleep. So instead they sat with the messy desk between them, Steve fiddling with the random items in front of him and the Soldier still as a statue.

When the Soldier broke the silence after what was at least an hour, Steve was seriously surprised.

“You could have left me.” The Soldier said, his voice still carrying a hefty amount of hesitation like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to speak. Steve opens his mouth to protest, because of course he couldn’t just have left the injured man by the side of the road in the middle of the desert while he went ahead, but then he realized that he _could_ have. The Soldier did anything he was ordered to, including waiting for what could have been days in the desert. He considers the time they lost because the Soldier couldn’t keep up and realizes that Steve leaving ditching the Soldier and going ahead would have been way more efficient – they might even have gotten picked up by now if he had.

“Is that what Captain Walker would have done?” He asked, trying to keep his voice neutral and inquisitorial instead of letting curiosity and dread bleed through.

“Probably.” The Soldier answered, blunt truth masking whatever emotions the Soldier himself might have about that.

Steve winced and wished that he could go back and put a few more rounds of bullets in his former mentor. Then a thought crossed his mind and made him frown as he studied the Winter Soldier’s face. The Soldier noticed him staring, shifted a bit in his seat before scowling back at Steve, like he wasn’t comfortable being looked at that way. Turn of the tides.

“Is that why you didn’t tell me you were hurt?” Steve asks slowly. The Soldier’s reaction is all the affirmative he needed, it doesn’t matter that the man’s face tenses up in an obvious refusal to answer the question.

“I wouldn’t have left you.” He says and it comes out with way more force and determination than he meant for, but it’s true. He can’t tell if the Soldier believes him, and he doesn’t get an answer, their conversation dying out into silence as they wait for HYDRA to come and bring them back home.

 

**Thursday, Mission Day 3, Dawn, Steve Rogers, a gas-station, Mexico**

Steve is somewhere between sleep and awake, dozing but not quite far gone enough to be unaware of his surroundings. He watches through half-lidded eyes as the Winter Soldier twirls a small knife between the fingers of his flesh hand, the show almost hypnotic and strangely relaxing. The knife’s edge is sharp, glinting when the light in the ceiling reflects on it and it slides so close to the Soldier’s skin that it’s almost impossible to see the space between steel and tissue. When the Soldier first started toying with the knife as if it was a pen and not a weapon capable of slicing a finger off if he wasn’t careful, Steve’s heart had jumped a few times as the blade travelled between calloused fingers. But after a while he realized that the Soldier had complete control over his limbs and the knife and that he didn’t have to worry about performing any more surgery that day.

Then he’d become entranced with watching the blade dance between the Soldier’s fingers, never slowing down or missing a beat even as the man moved his arm from the table to his knee or from his knee back to the table. It was the kind of fine motor-control Steve was itching to master but hadn’t had a chance to learn. He had the reflexes and the strength that came with the serum, but things like balance and complete control hadn’t been a part of the package and it was things like that which really made a good fighter.

As if he’d been reading Steve’s mind the Soldier looked up at Steve, the knife still moving between his fingers. His broken bones had obviously healed a while back and if the slight swelling in his fingers hurt it didn’t affect his ability move them.

“You didn’t kick my ass yesterday.” The Soldier said, his words slow and deliberate with small amount of stubbornness to them as he referred to the conversation Steve had had with the other agents the previous day. Steve couldn’t help at laughing at the way the Soldier was giving him attitude, the show of personality he’d come to like on full display.

“I never said I did.” Steve said, smiling as the Soldier looked a bit stunned by his reaction. Then his eyes set and he nodded sharply like that was what he wanted to hear, and it was good Steve knew his place.

“I will one day though.” Steve added, all challenge and promise because he didn’t really like the insinuation of that nod. Like Steve wasn’t as good as the Soldier and he never would be and he might as well get used to it. Because that wasn’t happening. The Soldier gave a tiny huff of a laugh at that, like he thought Steve’s dreams were unattainable but it’d be amusing to see him try.

Steve wanted to bite something back at that, but by the time he could come up with a good rip the Soldier had leaned back in his chair, his posture relaxed and calm in a way Steve hadn’t seen him before. Like he’d stopped expecting that everything Steve did was a build-up to hurting him. It made him look more like a person than a weapon, and Steve was itching to get to know the Winter Soldier better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos keep me going! I love hearing what you think about this story!!


	5. the Second Fight

**Wednesday, sometime around lunch, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4**

Steve has been back at home base for six full days, growing bored out of his mind, when finally the TV-screen on his wall lights up with a message telling him to report to the training area. He’s already worked himself up – not much else to do on the base other than working out or reading and ever since the mission with the Winter Soldier he’s been way too hyped up on residue excitement to concentrate on calm activities. He hasn’t managed to work himself into a sweat yet, never could before he grew bored by himself, but he’s been going at it long enough that his body is lose and warm and he couldn’t be more ready for the sparring session with the Winter Soldier that he’s been promised.

When they came back from Mexico Steve had been subjected to a full day of mission-reports and answering questions from so many different people their faces had started to blend together by the end of it. He’d have preferred torture to the amount of paperwork he’d had to get through and when they finally had put him in front of Mr. Pierce he’d felt like he was going cross-eyed and dehydrated. But at least he’d had the chance to practice his lies enough times that they fell right off his tongue and the Commander seemed to have bought his story without a doubt.

He’d been terrified when he’d faced with the Commander in a way he’d never been scared before in his life. He’d never lied to HYDRA before – you didn’t lie to HYDRA and get away with it. He’d committed treason and broken so many rules from so many books he’d lost count and on top of it all he was a shitty liar. But failing wasn’t an option – if Mr. Pierce or anyone at HYDRA found out the truth not only would he have been subjected to the kind of torture you didn’t want to believe existed, the Winter Soldier would probably have been terminated as well. The uphill battle that had been Steve’s life would have ended just as he’d caught a glimpse at how it could be, and what he’d seen had been amazing. And he couldn’t let that happen.

So he’d told the story of how the Black Widow had ambushed them and how she and the Solider had fought, leaving out the parts of how the Soldier had malfunctioned when he seemed to recognize the Widow. He took a risk covering for the Soldier but his selfish desire to keep the man in his future won out over his self-preservation. If Captain Walker had wanted to kill the Solider because his programming was a little off, than Mr. Pierce was bound to have the same thinking. And then Steve would be unmatched again, only now he knew what it was like to be challenged. He was nowhere near ready to give that up. So he’d lied and said that a SHIELD-agent managed to kill Captain Walker in the chaos, attributed the kill of that agent to the Soldier because why not. Mr. Pierce had looked impressed by the end and Steve had decided to push his luck – asking the man for a favor. The man had been intrigued, giving a sly smile which made Steve’s skin crawl and his instincts tell him to reconsider, but he’d pushed on anyway. He’d asked that the Soldier wouldn’t be but back on ice just yet, said that he could learn a lot if he could train with someone like the Soldier.

He’d been met with a wall of silence in regard to the Soldier after that. Vague mumblings about maintenance and debriefing and classified every time Steve asked about him until Steve wanted to punch someone in the face. It was obvious that HYDRA still considered him to be at the bottom of the ladder, just a rookie who got lucky and babysat the Winter Soldier for a few hours, not important to know anything about the man except the obvious things every other agent knew. It grated on Steve’s nerves, had him almost break the punching-bag in his room after he’d gone to the medical-bay asking for a status-report of the Soldier’s injuries only to be turned away none the wiser with guns pointed at him. He _had_ to prove himself to be more, better, to get more access to the Soldier, that much was obvious, and in order to do that he had to practice with someone who could challenge him.

The Soldier was already in the gym when Steve made it there (Steve hadn’t been running though.)(He’d been running.). His usual heavily armed entourage of four guards surrounding him, their faces serious and disapproving as they watched Steve enter. Like they didn’t think the Soldier should be played with like this. But they fanned out, giving Steve and the Soldier space on the mat, their guns raised and trained on the Soldier and it got Steve even more curious about the Solider. Captain Walker had said that it wasn’t the first time he malfunctioned on a mission – was HYDRA worried that he might break protocol on the base as well? What happened to the Winter Solider behind closed curtains?

Steve didn’t have very long to linger on those thoughts though, the room and the guards and curious onlookers fading away as he looked into the Soldier’s eyes to see what version of the man was standing in front of him today. The Soldier’s eyes snapped up to meet Steve’s like he felt Steve’s eyes on him, and Steve would bet anything that that was recognition in those intense eyes. Steve couldn’t tell if that was a good or a bad thing for the Solider though, only that the Solider knew who he was, any feelings about that was carefully locked away out of sight.

“Hi Soldier.” Steve offered as he took a few steps toward the other man, pulling of the sweatshirt he’d put on before leaving his room and tossing it aside. He was surprised by how personal the short statement sounded. He’d have thought it would have sound impersonal, like an order, but instead it sounded like he was greeting a friend, the Soldier being a well-earned and precious nickname instead of something that reduced him from a person to a weapon. He didn’t get an answer, or much of a reaction from the man though, not that Steve was expecting that at this point.

After a few seconds though the Winter Soldier nodded, a short and sharp motion that could have been mistaken for a muscle-spasm if Steve didn’t know just how well the Soldier seemed to be able to control his body. The acknowledgement had Steve fighting a smile. He wasn’t there to show his superiors that he was friends with the Soldier, he was there to prove that that the Winter Soldier would do much more use working with Steve instead of being stowed away on ice doing nothing good for anyone. Steve was not doing it in large part because he was mildly horrified at the idea of the Soldier having to spend an untold amount of time frozen because that sounded _terrible_ , the freezing alone had to be agonizing. He seriously wasn’t, this was about efficiency and progress and things like that.

Steve gave a nod of his own in return, letting the Soldier know that he was ready to get into it. If he hadn’t been focused on the Soldier’s eyes he might have noticed the way the fingers of the man’s metal arm twitched just a little bit and been able to brace himself for the attack, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, Steve stumbled backwards as the Soldier lunged straight into the fight, metal fist getting ready for a bone-rattling punch. Steve blocked the blow with his arm raised high to protect his face just in time, but realized his mistake when he left his flank open to the Soldier’s brutal kick which sent him even further back. The Soldier gave him no time to try and grab at the leg, following up with a series of punches. Steve was going to be covered in bruises by the time the day was finished he realized as he doubled over from a punch that knocked the wind out of him. He managed to slither out of the Soldier’s grip before the man could use his shoulders as leverage to connect his forehead with an unyielding knee.

Fighting the Winter Soldier is different this time, even more intense than the first time and that time had Steve’s head spinning. He is certain that the Soldier still has a strict no-kill-order (HYDRA wouldn’t want to waste Steve’s potential by bashing his brains out in an underground gym) but now he also knows that the Soldier doesn’t _always_ do as he’s ordered to, and during their last round there had been a few close calls with Steve falling into a vegetable-state after all. It wasn’t that he felt scared of being hit or taken out, quite the opposite. The added layer of intensity made his blood sing, adrenaline pumping through his veins like electricity he could feel. It was dizzying and clarifying at the same time as the Soldier pressed forward, forcing Steve to go on the offence and simply defend himself for a good few minutes before he found a way to regain some ground.

The last time they’d fought, the Soldier had looked at him like Steve now knew the man looked at a mission. Fighting Steve had been impersonal and methodical, go in, follow orders, come out on top. Steve should probably have kept more of his attention on the actual fight rather than try and analyze his opponent, maybe he’d been able to duck from that particularly hard blow to the jaw which had him wondering if all his teeth were still intact if he had. But the change in the Soldier’s pace and technique intrigued Steve and he couldn’t help sneaking glances at the Soldier’s facial expressions.

Most of the Winter Soldier’s face was still covered by that mask, but his eyes were expressive as ever and Steve couldn’t help but be reminded of their last conversation. The conversation in which the Soldier had firmly stated that Steve hadn’t kicked his ass in front of the other HYDRA agents, only to have Steve promise that one day he would, and that’s when he realized that the Soldier’s fighting was fueled by way more than orders.

This _was_ personal.

The Solider wasn’t just going through the motions of kicking Steve’s ass, he was proving last time was a fluke and nothing more. That Steve was nothing more than a slight inconvenience, a more difficult target than most but no real challenge. Steve didn’t know who the Soldier was trying to convince – himself, Steve, or the rest of HYDRA, maybe all of them, but it did make him grin. He’d always liked a challenge and a competition and it was no fun if the other person wasn’t as into it, like competing with a wall or something.

The realization made him bold. He wanted to take the Soldier down more than ever now and he had just as much, if not more, to prove to the agents watching them. If he could defeat HYDRA’s best fighter not only twice, but when the man was fighting for real stakes there was no way Mr. Pierce and the others could look at him like a green kid anymore. An unexpected kick to the Soldier’s knee put the man off balance, and Steve advanced on him, copying the Soldier’s own technique as he used his entire body as a weapon, not letting giving his opponent enough time for anything but defensive blocks.

It took the Winter Soldier just under ten seconds to figure Steve’s change in technique out though, and Steve could tell the second the Soldier realized Steve’s play. His eyes eyebrows shot up just a little, surprised by Steve’s quick adapting and a challenge was building in those eyes and Steve would have bet anything that the Soldier was smirking behind that mask. Then his stomach dropped as his feet were suddenly swiped out from underneath him, the Soldier using his metal arm to deflect the punches he’d been throwing like Steve was nothing more than an irritating fly buzzing around him.

The Soldier followed him to the ground, slamming his shoulders into the mat with the metal arm. Steve felt his head bounce of the floor, the tendons of his neck straining uncomfortably as he wondered how quickly his body would repair that kind of whiplash. He didn’t let himself worry about damages though – the Soldier obviously wasn’t going to let him take a break to nurse his wounds. He tried rolling over on his sides to duck a blow to his cheek, but the Solider had his upper body pinned with his arm. He’s not even close to giving up though and the Soldier looked way too satisfied with himself and sure of his victory.

Steve does manage to throw the Soldier off him for a second, his legs straining with the effort of fighting against the Soldier’s muscle and hold but he does break free. Lands a punch to the Soldier’s stomach that has to hurt, but as they roll on the floor, grabbing at each other the Soldier manages to pin Steve down against after a while. The kind of control the other man displays is as intimidating as it is impressive. The tumble on the floor was a blur for Steve, his limbs fighting without any direction, driven purely by instinct and a need to get out from under his opponent. The Solider on the other hand was obviously in full control of his body, not as much as a finger that didn’t end up exactly where the Solider wanted it for strategic purposes.

He ends up with the Soldier’s metal arm pinning him against the mat again, though this time the cool limb is pressing against his throat instead of his shoulders. His thighs are pinned by the Soldier’s knees on them, pressing hard enough that they will surely leave lasting bruises on even Steve’s body while he struggles against the unyielding weight. His right hand is uncomfortably pressed underneath him, impossible to move unless he wants to break it at the elbow and if he did there is no way he could win a fight against the Soldier anyway, so he doesn’t. The Soldier is holding his left arm down at his side, flesh fingers interlaced with Steve’s own like they’re holding hands. Nothing about the Soldier’s arm says that the grip is bone crushing in its intensity, the muscles barely looking strained.

It’s a strange rush to be pinned down under someone like the Solider, and not at all what Steve had expected. He might have expected that the Solider taking him down with just a slight sweat would make him feel small again, helpless and fragile. But he doesn’t, he feels stronger than he ever has before and alive like his body is buzzing with electricity even as he feels his vision going black around the edges from the lack of air. The Soldier is waiting for him to tap out, no doubt. Those eyes watching him intently, searching for the smallest sign of surrender. Steve is about to give it when a familiar huff of laughter reaches through his concentration on the Soldier and their fight.

Out of the corner of his eye he spots Brock Rumlow, the man lounging against a wall, looking smug enough to make Steve want to punch it off his face as he watches Steve pinned down and helpless. He grits his teeth and tries to take a breath against the metal arm, but it doesn’t give and inch and the dizziness in his head isn’t from adrenaline anymore. He should tap out, but damn if he is going to give Brock the satisfaction of seeing him give up. Their last fight is still fresh in Steve’s memory and the thought of embarrassing the more experienced agent forces him to fight a smile from breaking out on his lips.

Instead he redoubles his futile efforts at getting free, makes sure that the Soldier doesn’t see anything close to surrender on his face even as he feels his limbs going heavy and the room in front of him starts slipping away. The last thing he sees before he goes completely unconscious is the Soldier’s eyes, impressed and disapproving at the same time. Of course, he could have imagined that.

 

 

**Wednesday, Afternoon, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the gym**

“Man, Steve, you sure are something else.” Agent Lang's voice brought Steve back fully, and had him open his eyes on a victorious smile. They were close in age and had joined HYDRA at about the same time, trained together for the first few years and the agent was one of the few people Steve tolerated within HYDRA’s ranks.

“Did I win?” Steve joked, moving to sit up as he reached for the damp towel on his forehead to make sure it didn’t fall off. The cold felt good against the headache throbbing with increasing intensity as he started turning his head around. He immediately found the Soldier on the other side of the room, surrounded by his armed guards again but looking straight at Steve in a way that had Steve wondering if he’d studied him the whole time Steve was unconscious.

“No you totally lost, but it was glorious.” Agent Land laughed, slapping his hand on Steve’s knee in a way that would have made Steve uncomfortable if he didn’t have more important things to think about. Everyone knew that Scott Lang had a bit of a crush on Steve since basic training but it was harmless enough that Steve rarely had to deal with it, and Scott was in the field often enough that it didn’t really matter that he didn’t seem to be able to take a hint.

“Next time.” Steve said, seemingly to agent Land, but looking at the Soldier across the room as he said it, not doubting that the other man had heard it. He leaned back against the wall, flexing his arms legs a bit to feel for injuries. He noted that nothing was broken or sprained – he felt like he’d been ran over by a truck but it a good kind of soreness. It reminded him that there were still things he could excel at, still things he could work on and get better at. And that he’d fought the Winter Soldier again. Sure, he’d lost this time but he wasn’t bitter about that. There was nothing wrong with losing to a better opponent, as long as you knew that you’d beat him one day.

“Agent Rogers.” Steve forced himself to look away from the Soldier where he was standing like a statue across the room, a purple bruise forming on his right temple where Steve must have gotten in a punch. “That was quite the display.” The man speaking was Commander Pierce, and Steve immediately got on his feet when he saw the blonde man.

He got a little bit dizzy from the quick movement but he didn’t think the Commander caught that.

“I will keep the Soldier out of Cryo for a while. I’m interested to see what kind of progress you could make with the Soldier.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Steve said, not able to keep the eagerness at that out of his voice.

“You may discuss further details with Agent Allard once he arrives to resume as the Soldier’s handler. I believe the two of you are already acquainted?” Steve was pretty sure the smile on his face looked just as forced as it felt as Mr. Pierce mentioned the French agent he’d spoken with on the phone in Mexico. The last thing Steve wanted was to have the man who’d suggested he water-board the Soldier running around, giving the both of them orders. But it wasn’t like he was in a position to do anything about it, so he nodded and tried to think nice thoughts. Like how pissed Brock Rumlow probably was right now and how the Winter Soldier’s eyes had light up as he blew up the wreckage in Mexico with his grenades.

“Until then, Sir, can I go another round with the Soldier?” Steve knew he was pressing his luck and probably shouldn’t push the issue, but he didn’t feel anywhere near done or satisfied. He’d been knocked out for less than an hour so obviously his head was just fine and fighting the Soldier hadn’t scratched an itch, it had set him on fire.

Mr. Pierce studied Steve for a while in silence until Steve was sure his request was going to be denied, before looking over to the Soldier. Steve followed his eyes to see that the man’s stare was downturned, staring at the ground between his feet with no emotions on his face again.

“I don’t see why not.” The commander said after a second, turning to leave the room accompanied by a small entourage. More of the audience decided to stay though and didn’t really mind.

“Steve, are you sure-“ Scott started to protest but Steve cut him off with a glare in a second. He’d hated being babied when he practically was a baby, helpless and fragile and bound to be knocked over by a strong wind, and he hated it even more now that he was anything but.

The Soldier’s guards backed off again as Steve got back on the mat, stretching his muscles a bit as he waited for the Winter Soldier to advance again, anticipation thrumming in his blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't think this is just more of the same, but this was kind of a set-up-chapter. We're looking at some real interesting conflicts when the new Handler arrives in the next chapter and the Soldier gets sent out on a mission without Steve!


	6. the New Handler

**Saturday, early evening, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the gym**

Steve and the Solider is practice-fighting when Agent Allard show up at the base three days later, and Steve doesn’t even notice to begin with. Their sparring-sessions always has an audience, agents shifting in and out of the gym whenever their schedules allows them and Steve doesn’t even register when the door opens or closes anymore. Which is probably stupid of him, he’s sure that in addition to not missing a beat in their fights the Winter Soldier knows every little thing going on in the room around them as well. But Steve just can’t bring himself to shift his focus from his opponent, from the way he comes at Steve with the force of a storm, pulling Steve along for the ride.

There is yet another dimension to the way the Soldier fights him now. It’s obvious he’s been instructed to teach Steve instead of simply beating him up, but that doesn’t mean that he’s toned down the intensity. The pace at which they move is still enough to blur even Steve’s enhanced senses, makes his fall back on instinct and trust his muscle-memories instead of advancing with technique the way he needs to if he is ever going to have a change of beating someone like the Winter Soldier.

The Soldier doesn’t go easy on him – doesn’t pull his punches and it makes Steve weirdly satisfied every time he tongues at a new split in his lip after he wasn’t fast enough to doge or block a blow. He should probably talk to someone about the fact that he likes getting punched when it’s the Solider doing the punching, but he doesn’t see the need to overanalyze things. Not being treated with kids-gloves feels good, being able to get hurt feels good.

When the Soldier gets close to hurting Steve in a way that will incapacitate Steve though the man always backs off, just shy of breaking bones or knocking him unconscious. There is a tug on his arm which sets the nerves on his body on fire with pain as the Soldier reminds him not to leave himself vulnerable for that exact move when he leans in to attack, before the Soldier pushed him away instead of taking the arm clean off his shoulder like he is sure the man could if he put his weight behind him. Or there is a scowl on the Soldier’s face as he squeezes Steve’s throat with a metal hand as Steve wasn’t quick enough to stop the Soldier, a silent reminder that he could tear Steve’s throat out with a flick off his wrist, before he’s thrown to the ground. And there is a frozen second where the Solider grabs Steve’s leg with his metal arm in a kick he was to slow to deliver and just holds the leg in the air so that Steve will have enough time to reflect on his mistake before he is flipped over.

And then there is that intense look in the Soldier’s eye which is different from his concentrated sparring-look whenever Steve manages to get the upper-hand, does well or proves that he’s learned something from their sessions. It’s not anger on his face when Steve’s fist connects with the Soldier’s body in a bruising way like he’s seen on almost every other sparring partner he’s had. The Soldier doesn’t get mad because his pride was wounded whenever Steve gets a hit in, he just _looks_ at Steve that way and their fighting gets more intense. Steve usually loses a lot of whatever ground he has gained whenever the Soldier looks at him like that and it’s frustrating as hell because Steve can’t face the Soldier no matter what he does, no matter what cheap tricks he tries or how hard he hits, but the Soldier gets under his skin and breaks his concentration without even trying.

“Soldat! Arrête!” The order cuts through the air right when Steve is advancing on his opponent, certain that he’ll be able to bring the Solider down on the ground and actually win this round, and Steve is too slow to react to the words, too invested in the fight. The Soldier freezes, snaps out of his combat stance to stand tall, the arm that was just reaching out to block Steve’s blow retracting to his side as he reacts to the order. Steve doesn’t register the change in the man until he’s delivered a right hook do the Soldier’s cheek, immediately followed up by a forceful kick to his ribs before Steve follows through on his plan and moves to pull the Soldier to the ground with him. He stops just short of tackling the other man, barely keeping his balance as he’s brought out of the trance-like state he must have been in when he realizes that the Soldier isn’t fighting him anymore.

He steps back, swears to himself mentally and closes his mouth before he can start apologizing to the Soldier, his insides twisting at the fact that he _doesn’t_ apologize for hurting the Soldier when he obviously wasn’t able to defend himself. His breaths are coming heavy as he takes a few steps back from the other man, runs a hand through his hair and tries very hard not to be horrified when he realizes that his fingers has a few specks of blood from where it broke the skin just where the Soldier’s mask ended at his cheekbone. The Soldier doesn’t look hurt of course – a small streak of blood on his cheek, trailing down behind the mask and his hair ruffled from where Steve had pulled on it about an hour ago, frustrated enough to sink to the level of hair-pulling to finally get the upper-hand. But Steve knows his own kick – he felt the impact of it through the soles of his boot, how it vibrated up his own leg and very well might have cracked one of the Soldier’s ribs. He had been sure that the Soldier was going to move and deflect the kick so it would land on the hard planes of his stomach instead which was why he hadn’t thought to hold back on his strength.

Steve wants to check on him, make sure that he didn’t break anything because yeah sure the Soldier could handle a broken rib just as well as Steve could, probably better, but knowing that Steve had kept going when the Soldier had been unable to defend himself turned his stomach. He cursed himself again, himself and HYDRA and their medieval views on alpha-males. Showing concern made you weak, especially if it was for an opponent no matter if it was a mock-fight or not, and Steve had picked up enough to know that showing concern for the Winter Soldier’s wellbeing would put him under serious scrutiny. If anyone though he was getting soft on the Soldier there was no way he’d be allowed to keep working with him.

“The Solider is not a toy, Agent Rogers.” Steve jumped a bit at the voice, recognizing the French accent from his phone call from Mexico. He turned to look at the agent, reluctantly looking away from the Soldier to do so. The agent in front of him was tall and lean, a good twenty years older than Steve and had obviously been out of the field for several years judging by the way he wasn’t filling out the suit he was wearing.

“Agent Allard.” Steve said stiffly, choosing to disregard the agent’s scolding. He seemed to be the only one around the base who _didn’t_ think the Soldier was a just thing, he didn’t need the other man reminding him of that thank you very much.

“Clear the room.” Agent Allard ordered, and the audience quickly moved to comply, despite a few disgruntled huffs of disappointment. Watching the two super-soldiers fight had quickly become the main source of entertainment at the base.

The agent picked up on Steve’s hostility easily and Steve mentally cursed himself for a third time that minute. Keeping his mouth shut for his own sake had never been a thing he’d been good at, and while he could get away with it more often since the serum this wasn’t one of those situations he could punch his way out of. The agent’s lips twitched, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth and Steve found himself regretting that he’d killed Captain Walker just a little bit.

“Soldat, tuez-le.” Steve had never been more thankful than the hours he’d spent learning French while he had too much free time on his hands in countless hospital beds than he was now. He managed to duck at the same time the Soldier snapped into action, blank eyes filled with an order and a mission as he quickly closed the distance between them.

Steve’s suspicions had been right – he stood no chance against the Winter Soldier when the man had a kill-order. His heart was beating hard enough to hurt in his chest as he took a punch, managed to dodge the second but was pulled into the Soldier’s suffocating embrace as he tried evading the third as well. He struggled against the Soldiers grip, desperately trying to rack his brain to find a way to end this without him dying. He didn’t want to fucking die like this, in an underground bunker because some fucking asshole agent didn’t like his tone without ever having achieved anything in life. The idea of trying to influence the Soldier’s programming struck him for a split second – he could call the man by the name the Widow had used, call him James and try and see if it could break through the order he’d been given. But then he’d give agent Allard the upper-hand, show him how fragile the Soldier’s programming was and the agent would undoubtedly come to the same conclusion that Captain Walker had and demand the Solider be reduced to scrap-metal. He could try and give the Soldier an order himself, see if he could override agent Allard’s command but that would be admitting weakness to the other agent and that was out of the question as well.

“Stop.” The Soldier froze as the agent ordered him to, hands falling from the sides of Steve’s face where they had been ready to snap his neck in a flash. The room around Steve blurred for a second as it came crashing down on him exactly how close he’d been to dying at the Soldier’s hands and he stumbled away from the man with as much dignity as he could possibly muster. It wasn’t much. He turned to glare at agent Allard once he’d caught his breath, fingers itching to exact some revenge. To see how well the agent faired when he was faced with a super soldier who wasn’t brainwashed to follow orders.

But Steve wasn’t without his leash either, and while he’d killed his Captain in the heat of the moment on a mission gone to hell there was nothing he could do about disliking agent Allard and the man’s methods. He was a superior and he was the Soldier’s new handler – his word was final when it came to the Soldier from now on and if Steve was hoping to get more time with the Soldier he’d have to beg agent Allard for it. It wasn’t like he could kill the man in the base, unfortunately.

“On your knees, Soldier.” The agent ordered, effectively ignoring Steve. Steve watched as the Soldier dropped to his knees, hitting the floor hard as he moved to comply as quickly as possible. It was a clumsy motion, no trace of the cat-like grace he’d come to expect from the Soldier every time the man moved as much as a finger and it made Steve clench his jaw.

“Crawl.” The agent ordered as soon as the Solider was on the ground, his hand indicating to a spot on the floor just in front of him and Steve wanted to punch something. Needed to punch something. He’d never liked bullies. Half of the reason his mother agreed to pull him out of school and homeschool him was because on the days he wasn’t sent home because he was too sick he was sent home because he’d been beaten up trying to defend some kid at the playground. Watching agent Allard treat the Soldier this way made his blood boil.

When the Soldier moved to follow the order Steve suspected that he had indeed broken, or at the very least, cracked one of the Soldier’s ribs with his kick. He doubted anyone who hadn’t studied the Soldier to an obsessive degree the last few days would notice the slight shift in his weight from his left side to his right, and he debated whether or not he should raise his concerns with agent Allard or not. He thought back on the Soldier not telling him he had a bullet in his thigh simply because Steve hadn’t bothered to ask how he was doing. He doubted a man like agent Allard would even pay a thought to checking a weapon with enhanced healing abilities for injuries after a mock fight.

The next order made Steve’s mind up for him though, as the agent looked down at the Soldier before rolling the words over his tongue like he enjoyed the taste of them. “Kiss my shoes.” He said, and the way there was no hesitation in the Soldier as he put his lips to the agent’s dress-shoes left Steve feeling like he’d just jumped out of a plane without a parachute.

He’d known that the Solider was made to follow orders, of course he had. He’d seen the man go against his own will and let himself be treated like a thing on several occasions. But he hadn’t really known, Steve realized. Not until he saw the way agent Allard wielded words like a weapon and turned the most lethal Soldier possible in the entire world, and reduced him to _this_. Steve was going to be fucking sick, and there was no way he was going to reveal any weakness on the Soldier’s part that the agent might abuse. So he kept his mouth shut about the possibly broken rib, hoping that maybe one of the Soldier’s guards would notice and have it wrapped later.

“That will be all, Agent Rogers.” Agent Allard’s attention finally found its way back to Steve as the Soldier sat back on his haunches once he was done kissing the agent’s poorly polished shoes.

“Commander Pierce gave permission for me to spar with the Soldier-“ Steve started, unable to not argue with the man in front of him.

“And I will take Commander Pierce’s wishes into consideration. But like I said, the Soldier is not a toy and you would do best to remember that. I fear you Americans lack the discipline to properly handle the Soldier.” Agent Allard cut him off, clearly letting Steve know that he was done with him and if Steve tried to push more nothing good would come of it.

Steve threw a quick glance at the Soldier while biting his tongue. The expression on the man’s face was still blank and Steve wondered if maybe that was a good thing. That kind of blank expression couldn’t possibly have any thought behind it, maybe the Soldier was able to disassociate from himself when he was given orders like that, so that he didn’t have to be fully aware of what his body was doing.

As he stalked out of the gym he heard agent Allard turning his attention back to the Soldier. “Vous souvenez-vous de moi, Soldat?” The man said and Steve bit through the inside of the cheek he’d been unconsciously chewing on as he heard the Soldier’s response.

“Oui, master.” The Soldier answered, his voice almost breaking at the end. Steve forced himself to swallow the blood welling into his mouth as he kept worrying the wound he’d made with his teeth as the sound of the Soldier’s voice echoed through his mind all the way until he reached his room. He’d sounded the same way when he’d pleaded for Steve not to disarm him back in the desert, scared and expecting to be hurt but unable to not comply with orders anyway.

Steve broke the chair to his desk against the wall of his room, wood splintering like he’d put it through a woodchopper from the force of it. The sound of the Soldier’s shaking voice waking him up sweating twice during the night, until Steve decided to forego sleep entirely. He stared at the roof above him as a solution started to slowly form in his head.

He wanted to spend more time with the Soldier and he wanted to protect the Soldier from anyone who wanted to use his weaknesses against him. He wanted to prove himself, he wanted to be the best and he wanted the Soldier next to him for that, that intense stare challenging him to be better, to fight harder. All he needed to do was make sure he became the Winter Soldier’s handler and all his problems would be solved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another round of google translate as my beta, I hope I didn't fuck up the french too bad.
> 
> Soldat! Arrête! - Soldier! Stop!  
> Soldat, tuez-le - Solider, kill him.  
> Vous souvenez-vous de moi, Soldat? - Do you remember me, Soldier?


	7. the Joke in the Gym

**Tuesday, just after lunch, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the gym**

It takes Steve about twenty minutes off sparring to notice that something is different, _wrong_ , with the way the Soldier the next time they fight each other. He’d been looking forward to spar with the Winter Soldier again like a kid looking forward to Christmas morning. He’d quickly realized how boring his life had been before he’d been introduced to the Soldier, how he’d been going through the motions thinking he was content with his life only to realize that he’d been sleepwalking for years.

Agent Allard had kept the Solider under lock and key for three day since his arrival at the base and soon Steve had started to get worried that maybe the French agent had more sway than Commander Pierce and that he’d never see the Winter Soldier again because agent Allard didn’t approve of him.

So when he’d finally been called to the gym he’d been borderline ecstatic at the prospect of getting his ass kicked by the human equivalent of a tank again. But his enthusiasm is short-lived as he realizes that there is something about the way the Solider fights him today that’s different from their previous sessions, and the bad taste in his mouth isn’t because he just had to swallow an unhealthy amount of blood as he’s distracted enough that when the Soldier’s punch lands Steve accidentally bites down on his tongue.

The Soldier is no less fierce than he usually is, still moving like a force of nature with all the power and intensity of a tornado wrapped up in the grace of a large feline, which is why it took Steve as long as it did to notice that something was off. But when he realizes it and starts looking he curses himself for not noticing it sooner.

There is no trace of the Soldier’s personality in his eyes as he fights Steve. Most of the time his eyes are blank and that wouldn’t have bothered Steve if that had been all that was different. He’d have assumed that agent Allard had given him an order and that the Soldier was in mission-mode. They had fought like that before, the first time they sparred, after all. It was less efficient when it came to Steve actually learning something instead of just trying to dodge the Soldier’s attacks, but at least was _something_ and he wasn’t really in a position to be picky or make demands. But that wasn’t all there was to it. It took him another while to be able to put a finger on the uneasy feeling he had because he didn’t manage to get the upper-hand for a frustratingly long while. But once he did it was clear as day when he studied the Soldier’s expression.

Steve had landed three consecutive punches to the Soldier’s face, using his shoulder and back to keep the Soldier from blocking him with the metal arm, the last blow enough to dent the mask he was wearing slightly. He was just getting ready to use the moment of distraction right after the lastly delivered punch to his advantage and flip them down on the ground when he noticed the change in the Soldier’s eyes. Instead of the intense gaze he’d gotten used to receiving whenever he managed to get the upper-hand the Soldier looked _terrified_ for a second and it stunned Steve enough that he lost all his focus, had him reeling backwards as the Soldier took advantage and pushed him into a wall hard enough it was probably dented around the shape of Steve’s head. The pure terror in the Soldier’s eyes lingered as he threw a quick glance at his new handler, quick enough that Steve doubted that Agent Allard had even noticed it, but Steve couldn’t _not_ see it. When the Soldier looked back at him the emotion was gone again, replaced by an empty stare as the Soldier advanced on Steve and had the upper hand again.

Steve was shaken by the Soldier’s reaction and it was all he could do to try and evade the Soldier’s advances as his mind was reeling from trying to figure out why the Soldier would be scared like that. It wasn’t like Steve would be able to seriously hurt the other man. Even when he did get the upper hand he only managed to keep it for a few minutes before he miscalculated or got too complacent and the Solider had him on the defense or on his back again. Steve had even gone to great lengths to make sure that he avoided hitting the side where he’d cracked the Soldier’s ribs during their last duel just in case they were still sore.

But when Steve managed to pin the Solider to the floor for all of eight seconds (he knew because agent Allard started counting the seconds out loud like a smug asshole when it became clear that Steve had a good grip) he realized that it wasn’t about him at all. The Soldier’s gaze flickered over to where his new handler was leaning back against the far wall in the gym across Steve’s shoulder and his attempt to get out from under Steve changed. Suddenly Steve wasn’t trying to hold down the calculating and controlled weapon that the Soldier was most of the time. Instead he was holding a feral animal, all instincts as he trashed against Steve violently, with no finesse or technique, fueled by a desperate _need_ to get free. The Solider wasn’t afraid that Steve would hurt or injure him while they sparred, he was scared that his handler would hurt him if he didn’t fight well enough.

It made sense, considering what Steve already knew about the French agent. When they’d spoken on the phone in Mexico it was obvious that agent Allard frequently punished the Soldier for failures and missteps. Steve wasn’t surprised by that per se, HYDRA had probably never even heard of the carrot-part of the carrot and stick-method. Hell, he’d found himself bloody or strung up for the sake of progress and betterment a few times, but there should be a line. Order comes through pain, sharp cutting or bone-breaking pain, not this kind of pure terror that had the Soldier forgetting all of his training and reduced him to a feral dog.

The next time the Soldier bucked up against Steve’s grip he let up on his hold, shifted a bit so that his foot came closer to the Soldier’s, within his opponent’s reach, and pretended that he’d only momentarily lost balance. He was half surprised that the Soldier had noticed the subtle shift since he only seemed focused on just _getting_ free instead of on how to get free. But the room shifted after no less than a second, the Soldier grabbing the leg that was now in his reach and flipped them over in an impressive show of strength. Steve dodged a jaw-crushing blow to the head as the Soldier didn’t fail to follow him to where he went down, but instead of trying to roll away from the Soldier and possibly gain some ground like he saw an opening to do, he moved to block a another punch with his arm instead. The move gave the Soldier time to solidify his position on top of Steve, their roles revered as Steve was the one pinned to the floor this time. He tested just how stuck he was, flexing his muscles as he struggled to get out from under the Soldier without success. He didn’t fail to notice how the Soldier’s blinked and his eyes were blank again as he too seemed to determine that there was no way Steve was going anywhere unless he himself allowed it, no trace of the fear from earlier, like it had never existed.

Steve took two powerful blows to his nose, not enough to make it break but several blood-vessels erupted and the back of his mouth was starting to fill with uncomfortably with blood. He tapped the mat under his right palm twice when he saw the Soldier pull pack to gather momentum for a third punch, signaling that he was defeated even though it did sting a bit to do it. The third punch doesn’t land, but the Soldier doesn’t pull off him like Steve expected him too, in good sparring-etiquette. Instead the Soldier looks over his shoulder to agent Allard, asking for new orders.

“Rogers, I must admit I expected more from you.” Agent Allard says, without giving the Soldier an order to release him like any decent person would. Steve isn’t struggling against the Soldier’s hold on him anymore, he relaxed as soon as he tapped out and expected to be let up the second he did, but Agent Allard seems to want to keep him in suspense. Steve grits his teeth at the classic bullying technique and makes a face as he’s forced to swallow another mouth full of blood. But he forces himself to lie still under the Soldier, doesn’t want to give the agent the satisfaction of seeing him do anything even resembling begging. Begging was probably what the French agent was hoping to get out of Steve though and Steve was half expecting agent Allard to order the Winter Soldier to kill him just to provoke a reaction again after a full minute of time had passed.

Then agent Allard’s order cut through the gym, sharp and unnecessarily aggressive. “Encore.” He said, and the Soldier snapped into action, stumbling over himself to get back on his feet and into a fighting stance. Those quick shaky movements looked unnatural and wrong compared to the way he usually moved and Steve was going to get a headache if he clenched his jaws any tighter.

Their next round was terrible. Steve had never been good at holding back. He always threw himself head first into a fight, poured everything he had into it and blocked out the rest of the world. It gave him an edge, made him sharper and uninhibited in a way that overwhelmed his opponents, but it also made him forget certain circumstances and made him too focused on winning the fight. He rolled with the punches (literally and figuratively) and gave almost as good as he got when the Soldier advanced on him again. It wasn’t until it was too late and that fear was already flickering across the Soldier’s face that Steve realized that he’d ignored the stakes in their fight in his eagerness to win for the sake of winning and restoring his own pride.

He was backing the Winter Soldier into a wall, metal arm trapped at an angle behind him as Steve caught the flesh hand and moved to flip them back on the ground. The Soldier managed to come up on top again when they went down because Steve opened his palm a little too much on half-purpose-half-accident when he was reminded by the Soldier’s new reaction to failure. It had only been a few seconds where Steve had had the upper hand, a bid deal for him but really nothing to the Winter Soldier if you compared it to the amount of times where Steve had been embarrassedly outmaneuvered that day alone. But it was enough for the Soldier to look like a man who’d just been stranded on the island of nightmares-come-true.

They tumbled a bit on the ground again before Steve managed to get back on his feet, dodging as the Soldier followed and managed to put a relatively safe distance between the two of them so that he could try and let his head catch up to his body. The sparring had lost most of its charm by now and Steve was furious at agent Allard for ruining this for him. It wasn’t just the man’s ability to throw a hard punch or tackle him to the floor that Steve liked about fighting the Soldier – it was those sparks of personality and challenge he’d been privy too that really made it fun. This felt like he was beating someone who was already laying down, wounded and helpless and it made Steve feel sick. The Soldier obviously wasn’t enjoying fighting Steve, not even when _he_ was the one wiping the floor with Steve, and whenever Steve got the upper hand it was painfully obvious how scared the Soldier was by what that would mean for him later.

Steve wouldn’t actually have minded taking a few more punches than necessary and scaled back his aggression if it meant he could spare the Soldier from the terror he seemed to fight every time he was at a disadvantage. No one should look that way, no matter how few traces of humanity might be left in them, and especially not from someone on their own team. Because they were – they were all HYDRA at the end of the day, despite power-struggles and personal disagreements and when it came down to it they had each other’s backs (except for how Steve had murdered his own Captain, but no need to get stuck on details, that had been for a good cause). But if this was the way most other agents treated the Soldier his behavior started making more sense at least, why he’d been worried Steve might take advantage of his vulnerable state back in the desert. He tried to imagine how terrible that must be for the Soldier – to not know who to trust, especially when all it took was an order and he’d be compelled to comply. He immediately shut the thought down when it left him feeling like the floor had opened up under him and he was falling from a sky-scrape. There were a lot people Steve didn’t like at the base, but he would still trust them to have his back when it came down to it, including Brock Rumlow.

The thing was though, Steve couldn’t go easy on the Soldier just to spare him grief with his handler later, because that was the complete opposite of why he needed to spar with him in the first place. He needed to get better, he needed to learn how to be even better than the Winter Soldier so that his superiors would take him seriously, give him more authority and maybe even put him on the Soldier’s permanent detail. That wasn’t going to happen if Steve got his ass handed to him like every other agent they put in the ring or in the field with the Soldier. Steve had to be better.

Which was why he took a huge breath of relief when a chime came from a speaker close to the ceiling. Agent Allard ordered the Soldier to stand down and they all listened for the computerized voice of former HYDRA-operative Zola to relay its message.

“Commander Pierce wishes to see agent Allard on level 5.” The artificial intelligence system running through the base was probably impressive if you had the slightest interest in computers and things like that, but Steve always felt wierded out talking to no one. The Soldier didn’t react to the sound, probably because it didn’t pertain to him, but agent Allard looked clearly unhappy with being summoned. But he obviously knew better than to disobey Mr. Pierce and schooled his expression when he realized that Steve was watching him.

“Venu Soldat.” The agent said, turning on his heel to walk out of the room with the Soldier at his heels.

“Without the Winter Soldier.” Zola’s voice was immediate and agent Allard’s eyes narrowed significantly. Steve was pretty sure that he didn’t imagine the way some of the tension left the Soldier’s shoulders as he realized he wasn’t going anywhere with his handler.

“The Soldier goes wherever I go. He is highly unstable and needs to be kept in line.” Agent Allard argued, and Steve and the Soldier both tensed right back up at the insistence.

“There will be no need for weapons, agent. Commander Pierce thinks the Soldier’s time is better spent working with agent Rogers.” Agent Allard was obviously angry, but he stalked out of the room without looking back and the door clicked shut behind him without the Soldier’s usual guard joining them inside.

Steve didn’t know what to say or do for a full minute after he and the Soldier had been left alone, and the Soldier stood where his handler had left him, not moving an inch and looking like he wasn’t even aware that Steve was in the room with him. It was making Steve uncomfortable looking at the shell of a man when he knew that there was so much more to him, and as the adrenaline from their fight started to wear down he realized that he was sore all over and the Soldier was likely to be too, standing like that couldn’t be comfortable.

“At ease, Soldier.” He said, the only way he could think of in which he didn’t give the Soldier an order he might not actually want to comply with. It got a reaction at least, the other man looking at Steve but not meeting his eyes like he’d been doing whenever Steve had addressed him before. Whatever, it was better than that empty stare into nothing and Steve was going to take it. The Soldier’s eyes narrowed a little, in confusion or maybe suspicion as he realized that it hadn’t been a straight forward order with instructions.

Steve busied himself with fetching a bottle of water and two protein bars from the bag he’d brought. He was starving from the workout and struggled as he tried deciding if he wanted to eat or drink first, making a point of ignoring the Soldier, hoping that the man might relax a bit if he wasn’t watched constantly. When he glanced over at the Solider again the man was still standing on his two feet, hands at his sides and back straight, but it looked more comfortable now than strung tight with tension. Steve wasn’t surprised to see that the Solider was still looking at him. Just like he isn’t surprised when the Solider denies Steve’s attempt at giving him one of his protein-bars again.

The soldier shook his head decidedly at Steve’s silent offer, but his eyes said something completely different. They flickered from the bar in Steve’s hand, to the door back to Steve’s face, torn between worry and hunger. Considering the fact that the Soldier had walked for miles with a bullet embedded in his thigh his mind-over-body-control had to be pretty spectacular and that led Steve to believe that he had to be pretty damn hungry to display such a blatant wish to go against whatever order agent Allard had given him that said he couldn’t eat when offered.

“No.” He said firmly when Steve didn’t pull the bar back, still extending it to the Soldier. He sounded like he was trying to convince both himself and Steve that he wasn’t going to take it, that he didn’t want it, didn’t need it.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell you handler. I can’t stand that guy, in case you didn’t notice.” Steve said, and the Soldier’s eyes darkened a bit, becoming suspicious and hard. Steve worried for a second that maybe agent Allard had ordered the Soldier to hurt anyone who disrespected his handler, but that seemed a bit over the top, even for him. It was more likely that the Soldier was worried about getting lured into a trap or something. Maybe he thought Steve was testing his loyalty to agent Allard, and that his handler was just outside the door, waiting for him to error. Steve shivered at the thought and became even more determined to show the Soldier that he could be trusted.

“If I wanted to get you in trouble I would have told them about Mexico.” He pointed out and the Solider seems to consider the logic of that. “And I didn’t tell Allard about your ribs.” He pressed to try and convince the Solider that Steve was looking out for the Solider, not trying to catch him in some kind of conspiracy. The man’s eyes narrowed slightly and he shifts his weight a little, like Steve talking about his ribs reminded him that they hurt.

“Why?” He asked slowly after a minute’s pause. Steve was surprised, hadn’t thought that he would get an actual reply and didn’t know how to answer for a few seconds.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to.” Steve finally answered.

“Why?” The Soldier asks again and Steve can’t quite decipher the tone of his voice.

“You don’t like being vulnerable.” Steve shrugs. “And agent Allard is a dick as it is, ‘s not like he needed something else to hold over you.”

“Language.” The Solider says, a mock admonishment with a sparkle of humor in his eyes, and even though he’s still wearing his mask Steve is pretty sure that there’s a smile playing on his lips. It was deflection at its finest, a way to steer the conversation in another direction, making light of a crushingly heavy topic and the sudden show of personality stuns Steve enough to make him speechless.

“Did you just…” Steve breaths, breaks off to laugh incredulously. It was such a completely unexpected reaction from the Soldier that Steve could hardly believe it. The Solider gives a shrug, eyes still more alive than they had been at any point since Steve had met the man. Steve shakes his head in confusion, feeling like the entire day just flipped on its head and does nothing to ignore the warm feeling in his chest as he realizes that the Soldier might actually trust him a bit, enough to make _jokes_.

“He _is_ a dick though.” Steve says, breaking the silence and tossing the protein-bar he is still holding over to the Solider. The other man catches it with a smooth motion and Steve settles down on the floor, legs crossed in front of him. The Solider doesn’t object to his statement but he doesn’t respond either. Just looks at Steve while he slowly removes the mask from the lower half of his face and Steve considers it a win that the Solider did it without Steve’s explicit order this time.

“Since when does a highly trained assassin care about cursing?” Steve asks, tries to strike up a conversation around bites of his snack. The Solider makes a face for a second, like he’s unhappy with something Steve says but it doesn’t last long before it’s replaced with a more neutral expression.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I just didn’t figure you the cursing-type.” There is definitely a smirk tugging on the corner of the Soldier’s lip now as he starts chewing.

“M’ not usually.” Steve confesses without meaning to, tries to play off how much the statement revealed by following it up with a shrug, like it’s nothing. He doesn’t think that the Solider missed the implication of it though – Steve doesn’t usually swear but thinking about how Agent Allard treats the Solider made him mad enough to do it. He doesn’t tease or mock Steve like most other men have done whenever Steve’s nose wrinkles at a heavy stream of curse or when he uses a milder word where others would have cured the air blue. The Solider just hums quietly to himself and looks very interested in his snack all of a sudden.

The Solider practically inhales the protein-bar once he’s gotten it between his teeth and Steve unconsciously stops eating his own to study the Soldier. It’s not the hurried chomping of a man who thinks that his meal might be taken away from him at any moment, it’s even more desperate than that.

“When’s the last time you ate something?” Steve asks, proud that his words only shake a little bit toward the end. He doesn’t really want to hear the answer – he knows the answer, too goddamn long is the answer, but he needs to know. He was never one to back down from uncomfortable truths and he’ll be damned if he ignores the other man’s suffering just so he himself can remain blissfully ignorant.

“Four days.” The Soldier offers like it’s nothing, a plain fact and not something to gasp about. Like he’s not currently still chewing because he can’t stop eating for long enough to swallow before speaking. ‘Since the day agent Allard arrived’ is left unspoken but Steve doesn’t even have to do the math to know that that’s it.

Steve gets a raised eyebrow and the hint of another smirk as he lets out another curse at the revelation, but he doesn’t take the Soldier’s bait this time. Because he knows what four days without food will do to his own (and therefor most likely the Soldier’s) body, and it’s not pretty. He tested his limits back when he was first given the serum and during that time he learned that almost four days without food had him feeling like his organs were trying to eat themselves, everything heightened and his usually strong limbs feeling weak and shaky. He’d been begging by the end of the fourth day, grabbing the medical staff by the throat to get some nutrition and breaking bones to get his way before the fifth day started. He didn’t go four _hours_ without nutrition if he could help it. But the Soldier fought as well as ever, despite the way his body had to be waging a war on itself by now.

Steve couldn’t find humor in the fact if he tried, even though the Solider was probably expecting him to shrug it off like it was no big deal. Like agent Allard had every right to treat the Solider however he wanted, like the Soldier should be able to handle _weeks_ without food and not break. Steve considered breaking off the second half of his own protein bar and offer it to the Soldier, but changed his mind after giving it a second thought. The Soldier probably wouldn’t appreciate pity any more than Steve himself did.

“Sit down and let your body heal, would you.” Steve says after a beat of silence, suggestion and order blending together as he’s torn between not wanting to take the option of choice away from the Soldier while at the same time wanting him to obey the request for his own good. The Soldier lowers himself onto the mat, legs folding underneath him until he’s kneeling in a position that is easy enough to get up from if he was attacked but comfortable enough to be considered relaxing.

Steve is still trying to find a topic worth discussing to break the silence between the two of them when the Solider finally finishes his snack and fixates Steve with an intense look as he starts folding up the bar’s wrapping.

“M’ glad I didn’t kill you.” The Soldier says, taking Steve completely by surprise again.

“Yeah. Me too.” He answers after a full minute where he’s incapable of speaking at all. Takes the easy way out by forcing a smile onto his face, like their fight-to-the-death-encounter the other day had been nothing.

“Your focus is too narrow when you fight.” The Soldier says, changing the topic so quickly Steve feels like he’s struggling to keep up with the way the man shifts from one mode to another in the blink of an eye. “You have to be aware of everything – where the lights and shadows are, how the floor feels under your feet, how much air is between you and your opponent, how the wind blows and what material the walls are made of.” The Soldier continues and now that he’s stringing together full sentences Steve notices how hoarse his voice is, like his throat is sandpaper, rusty like a car that hasn’t been used in years.

Steve blinks a few times when the Solider stops speaking, tries to fight the slight blush he can feel from spreading over his cheekbones as he realizes that he wasn’t paying nearly as much attention to the meaning of Soldier’s words as he did to the sound of them. “Um, yeah.” He manages, recalling something about how he missed important details because he was too focused on the obvious task ahead of him when he fought.

The Soldier scoffs, clearly noticing that Steve hadn’t been paying much attention to the advice. No more than a second later something collides with the top of Steve’s head, hard enough to sting a bit but not enough to actually hurt him. The surprise has him reeling backwards though, catching himself on his elbows before he hits the floor, heartrate picking up a bit at the surprise attack. The Soldier looks way too pleased with himself when Steve glares at him and reaches to his side to pick up the object the Solider had thrown at him. It was the Soldier’s mask, black plastic firmer than Steve had expected and he shivered at the thought of wearing the thing. It felt constricting just holding it his hands, like it would come to life like something out of a bad horror movie, grow tentacle-legs and crawl up to seal itself around his jaw to slowly suffocate him. He throws it away across the floor behind himself, the muscles in his arm moving before he can even make a conscious decision to keep the thing as far away from the Soldier and himself as possible.

The Solider is watching him when Steve looks back up at the other man, eyes focused but not betraying any emotion until the fingers on the metal hand flexes a bit, the metal plates making clicking sounds as they shifted. Steve’s eyes flickered to the prosthetic limb for a second and then back to the Soldier, catching the man’s face just in time to see him roll his eyes.

“And you let yourself get distracted by the smallest things.” The Soldier says, sounding an awful lot like he’s trying to give Steve a lecture. Funny thing though, for once it doesn’t make Steve grind his teeth the way he usually does whenever anyone tries to tell him how to do something. The Soldier isn’t his Ma trying to tell him to stay out of fights, a doctor trying to tell him to not get his heart rate up or some superior acting like they know his body better than Steve does himself, telling him how he should have moved like this or that. It’s different because Steve has seen firsthand what an excellent fighter the Solider is, how well he moves and how he’s always three steps ahead of everyone else, Steve included. And he wants to learn everything the Soldier is willing to teach him.

They sit in quiet for a good while after that. Steve is tempted to ask the Soldier to spar again, wonders if maybe it will go better now that agent Allard isn’t lurking in a corner, watching the Soldier’s every move and threatening violence. He is itching to know how the Solider would fight him now, considering that they were now apparently joking with each other. But then he remembers that the Soldier is still basically starved and probably has sore ribs and Steve has absolutely no desire to pile on to his physical pain.

So he opts for comfortable silence, allowing the Solider a change to maybe relax and let his guard down. He wouldn’t exactly call the Solider relaxed from looking at him, but the tension in his body was different from how he carried himself around agent Allard, or Captain Walker, and Steve considered that progress.

 

 

**Tuesday, afternoon, Brock Rumlow, Location classified, Base 4, a corridor**

“What is your opinion of Steve Rogers, agent Rumlow?”

“Rogers is just a kid, doesn’t respect authority and makes everything his business. The serum was wasted on him – they should have given it to a real soldier.” Brock doesn’t try to hide the way he’s implying that that real soldier he’s referring to should have been himself.

Agent Allard hums in answer.

“Captain Walker was his mentor, but Rogers doesn’t seem upset that he’s dead. All he wants to do is play with the Winter Soldier.” Brock offers without being asked. No one at the base listens to him when he says that something feels fishy about the way Rogers tells the story of his last mission, they all say that of course Rogers is upset that Captain Walker is dead. He’s just being a man about it, just being strong. Brock knows better though – Rogers is a bleeding heart and would be moping around and probably crying in the cafeteria if some random SHIELD-agent had shot his Captain on his watch, not sparring with the other person who was supposed to be concerned with Walker’s safety like nothing had happened.

Brock can’t quite interpret the thoughtful look on agent Allard’s face as he considers this, but it isn’t blatant disregard or disbelief at least and Brock decides that agent Allard is the best ally he is going to find against Rogers. Finally someone else seems to see beyond the super-abilities of the serum and realize that Rogers is trouble.

“Sir, if I may.” Brock asks, presses even though his pride tastes sour going down his throat when he swallows it. Agent Allard turns a corner down the corridor and looks at Brock, curious.

“I have done a lot for HYDRA and I’ve gone on several successful high stakes-missions. If anyone is fit to be the Winter Soldier’s next handler, it’s me.” He says, not bothering to try and be modest.

Agent Allard hums to himself again, looking Brock up and down like he’s evaluating him. “I have heard a lot of good things about you agent Brock. I will bring you for the Soldier’s next mission and we’ll see how you do.”

 

 

**Tuesday, evening, cyberspace**

20.15: Sky to the Bossman:

_> > Rogers hit me up today, asked a favor. Wanted me to delete s-footage from the gym._

_> > Attached file: camera_4D_TUES_14:26-17:08_

22:59: Commander Pierce to Sky (in IT):

_> > Delete all copies. Keep close to Rogers._

23.02: Sky to the Bossman:

_> > [Speak no evil-emoji]_

_> > He also wanted to see footage of the WS and the new handler. Do I give it to him?_

23.03: Commander Pierce to Sky (in IT):

_> > What does it show?_

23.04: Sky to the Bossman:

_> > Some pretty disturbing shit man_

23.04: Sky to the Bossman:

_> > Like, AA is a grade-A douchebag_

23.07: Commander Pierce to Sky (in IT):

_> > Send me a copy first. I’ll let you know._

23.20: Sky to the Bossman:

_> > Attached file: camera_4D_SAT_18.00-23.59_

_> > Attached file: camera_4D_SUN_00.00-23.59_

_> > Attached file: camera_4D_MON_00.00-23.59_

23.25: Commander Pierce to Sky (in IT):

_> > Keep up the good work. The money has been transferred to your account._

23.28: Sky to the Bossman:

_> > You really wanna thank me get me a better desk-chair. These IKEA [poop emoji] [chair emoji] are killing my back. I work the computer all day, I need a good chair boss._


	8. the First Look Behind the Scenes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggerwarnings: I'm adding an extra warning for explicit torture and violence in this chapter. If you want to avoid that you can just skip over the three paragraphs titled like camera-files, you won't miss anything terribly important - we all know agent Allard is a certified dick.

**Wednesday, 10.00 AM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the gym**

Since agent Allard doesn’t seem more hostile than usual when he enters the gym the next day, Winter Soldier at his heels, Steve can only assume that he hasn’t seen the surveillance-tape from the day before. It wasn’t until it was too late that Steve had remembered that practically every corner of the base was under constant surveillance. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to his friend Sky in IT for erasing those few hours of tape after he’d begged her to. She’d even promised him not to look at the footage, just erased it no questions asked. He owed her a huge debt. He didn’t even want to think about what agent Allard might to do the Solider if he found out that Steve and he hadn’t been sparring at all, but shared a meal and jokes.

The Soldier doesn’t look injured when he trails behind his handler, but he still holds himself differently from the first times Steve had seen him. With Captain Walker the Solider had walked tall, hard stare and commanding the respect of everyone in the room, like an impressive force of nature. Whatever agent Allard did to him though changed all that, made his movements just the slightest bit clumsy in the haste to comply with orders, nervousness flickering behind the empty stare at times. But Steve knew by now that just because he isn’t showing any obvious signs of pain it doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been hurt. Steve would be surprised if agent Allard hadn’t started laying whatever punishment he seemed fit to dole out on the Solider the second they got back to wherever the Winter Soldier was kept at night.

They start fighting at agent Allard’s command but just like the day before it’s an unproductive few hours that has Steve grinding his teeth in frustration afterward. He tries his hardest to get one up on the Soldier, but immediately loses all ground he’s gained when fear and panic flickers in the other man’s eyes. He’s suddenly glad they don’t have an audience anymore, because if they did he’s sure he’d be the laughing stock of the base as he lets the path to victory slip through his fingers like it burned him.

Agent Allard sends Steve away at lunch-time, talking French to the Soldier who’s keeping his head down, hair falling into his face and metal fingers twitching just the slightest. Steve doesn’t know enough of the language to understand all of what he overhears but what he does hear has him digging his nails into his palms hard enough to break the skin to distract himself, keep himself grounded so he doesn’t act on the impulse to beat the other agent bloody.

”You should have blocked that punch easily. If you like pain that much, all you had to do was tell me.” The Solider _had_ blocked the punch, he just hadn’t been expecting Steve’s feint.

“I’ll teach you a lesson and maybe next time you’ll concentrate instead of just blinking like a stupid owl.” Steve was pretty sure that the second of confusion and disorientation that had allowed him to get the upper hand that time had been the kind of dizziness that came from low blood-sugar-levels.

He left the gym and managed to keep his mouth shut, but it was a close call. But he knew that defending the Soldier would make the Solider look weak, and reveal that Steve cared about him more than he should and that wouldn’t lead anywhere good.

 

 

**Wednesday, 07.30 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, living quarters**

The email-alert has Steve’s head snapping up from where it’s buried in a book so fast it makes his head spin for a moment.

20.15: Sky to the Steve:

_> > Couldn’t go poking too much, too suspicious_

20.16: Sky to Steve:

_> > I’ve got real work 2 do u know_

20.17: Sky to Steve

_> > U owe me!_

20.19: Sky to Steve

_ >> Attached file: camera_4D_SAT_20.00-21.45_

_> > Attached file: camera_4D_SUN_05.40-09.00_

_> > Attached file: camera_4D_SUN_19.30-21.00_

20.20: Sky to Steve

_> > Viewer discretion is advice_

Steve only hesitated for a second before queuing up the files on his TV-screen. He wasn’t a coward when it came to battle or missions and he wasn’t a coward when it came to uncomfortable truths either.

 

**Camera_4D_SAT_20.00-21.45**

The Soldier is kneeling at agent Allard’s feet when the first video clip starts. A small pile of weapons is lying just beside him and Steve wonders if the Soldier’s fingers are itching to reach for them as agent Allard backhands him hard across the face. If they are, his face doesn’t betray it as he tilts off balance from the force of the blow, only showing trepidation for what’s coming next. The mask has come off, and the Soldier’s cheek is red enough that Steve guesses it’s not the first time in a short period of time he’s been hit like that.

“Your failure is a reflection on me.” Agent Allard spits, clearly in the middle of a lecture when the clip starts. “I will not tolerate any more embarrassments. Your last handler was obviously too soft on you. I won’t make that mistake.”

The Soldier straightens his back a bit, not enough for his body language to be defiant but more like he’s getting back into position. It seems like a practiced move, like the Soldier knows exactly what comes next and how he’s supposed to prepare for it. Steve is anything but prepared as agent Allard reaches for something out of the camera’s view and moves to stand at the Soldier’s back. He hears the crack in the air before he sees the cane in the agent’s hand just before it’s brought down across the Soldier’s back. The thin shirt the Soldier is wearing probably does nothing to soften the blow and Steve’s body twitches involuntary as he was the one getting hit.

The Soldier receives twenty-three strikes before he loses his composure, back hunching over in a way that has to put strain on his cracked rib but it doesn’t seem to matter as his body tries to get as far away from the pain as possible without moving from his position.

Agent Allard snorts unimpressed when he notices, like he’d still be conscious by now if it had been the other way around, him on his knees and the Soldier at his back. “Soft indeed.” He says as he brings down the cane again.

The Soldier takes another five blows before he starts flinching at the rush of air just before the wood hits his back.

“What use are you if you can’t even kill one woman?” Agent Allard taunts, like the Black Widow was just a civilian soccer-mom and hadn’t been the underworld’s most respected assassins before she’d gone legitimate with SHIELD. The camera-feed isn’t exactly HD but it is clear enough that Steve notices the way the Soldier’s expression changes at the comment when he strains his eyes. Behind the internal struggle with himself to handle the pain and stay in the position he’s commanded to hold there is resignation. Like he hears agent Allard’s criticism and knows it’s correct, like he knows that he deserves this punishment for his failure.

Another eight strikes and small sounds of pain starts slipping out through his clenched teeth.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you in pain?” Agent Allard asks, not letting up the rhythm of blows he’s set up. The Soldier doesn’t answer, Steve can see him clenching his teeth together to keep words in.

Another four strikes and agent Allard speaks again. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Weapons doesn’t feel pain, do they?”

“No, sir.” The Soldier manages and Steve has to pause the video for a few seconds to get up and pace around his room for a while, concentrating on his breathing before he can continue.

The rest of the file is more of the same – agent Allard explaining the nonsense things the Solider is being punished for until the cane starts coming away red and the Soldier’s shirt soaks through with blood.

 

 

**Camera_4D_SUN_05.40-09.00**

The camera is black at first, not showing anything until just when Steve starts to wonder if Sky sent him the wrong file or something. Then the screen in front of him is suddenly bursting with harsh fluorescent light, the Soldier’s body snapping up from where he must have been sleeping on a simple stone-bench. His usual guards are entering the cell (because it is a cell, small and cramped with a bench and a toilet and nothing else), loud and strapped with weapons where the Solider has none.

The guards grab the Solider harshly, yanks him up from must be considered the Soldier’s bed. Someone points the muzzle of their AR15 between the Soldier’s shoulder blades, pressing it into the skin while the others grab him and start dragging him out of the cell. Steve winches at the obvious power play of the thing, the way the whole thing is set up to intimidate and assert power over the Soldier. It’s not like they needed to use force like that – it’s not the Soldier is a prisoner who frequently gives his guards trouble if they don’t manhandle him with assault rifles. Just the simplest of orders would have had the Soldier stand from his bed and follow them wherever they wanted him without hesitation. Instead they choose to treat him like this.

A camera from another angle just outside the cell picks up the feed once the Soldier is dragged outside. He goes down easily into the chair he’s pushed against even though it’s obvious he’s not there to get a spa-treatment or something equally pleasant and Steve wants to scream at how the Soldier just lets himself be pushed around like that. Then he is immediately disgusted with himself for thinking like that, because it’s not like the Soldier wants any of it. He just doesn’t have any other choice but to obey HYDRA.

Agent Allard comes into view as the chair the Soldier is sitting on is being tilted back on two legs, setting down two buckets of water beside him and Steve knows where this is going. The handler starts talking about respect, and how the Soldier needs to re-learn his old lessons on the subject and Steve purposely doesn’t put a lot of effort into translating the French, focusing on the Soldier instead.

The Soldier isn’t being strapped down to chair with anything, the guards holding him more like a reminder than an actual attempt to keep him still – he could throw them off easy as swatting flies if he wanted to. But even without being restrained he keeps himself still, body rigid and tense but obeying without even having been told to.

It’s not the first time Steve has witnessed someone being water-boarded, but it is the first time he’s had such a strong reaction to it. The other people had been enemies of HYDRA, one of them a traitor who was passing along valuable information to a SHIELD-agent when Captain Walker took Steve under his wing. If you go against or betray HYDRA you’re practically setting yourself up for torture and punishment and Steve never had a problem with justice being served. But watching the Winter Soldier, perhaps HYDRA’s most loyal soldier, struggle to breathe at the hands of the people who was supposed to have his back was stomach-turning.

He desperately wants to turn the video off but he steels himself. If the Soldier can live through the actual pain of it then Steve can sure as hell stand to _watch_ it.

 

 

**Camera_4D_SUN_19.30-21.00**

The third clip shows agent Allard having dinner, and it takes Steve a while to notice the Soldier in the picture. He is kneeling at Allard’s feet at Steve doesn’t have to watch long to realize what game the handler is playing now. He knows what happens next, because the Soldier told him. He’d told him that he hadn’t eaten in four days, but Steve had just assumed that meant that he hadn’t been offered any food. Instead he had been made to kneel like a dog and watch agent Allard eat, purposefully dropping crumbs on the floor next to the Soldier and making noises off appreciation around his food.

This clip he did turn off before it was over.

 

**Thursday, 02.30 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the gym**

They are sparring again, like usual, but Steve’s heart isn’t in it. He can’t make himself follow through or push forward when he get a small window of opportunity to advance on the Solider and he hasn’t landed a solid hit the entire day. He can’t bring himself to hurt the Solider and he doesn’t want the man to get punished for failing after they are done.

The Soldier notices the change in the way Steve fights – of course he does, and Steve tries hard not to meet those expressive eyes. But it’s hard, studying the Soldier’s expression has become quite the habit and a habit Steve likes at that. The Solider pushes harder, tries to get a rise out of Steve, baiting or maybe trying to scaring him into fighting back with more purpose. Steve is pretty sure he’s not imagining seeing confusion when he is drawn to meet the Soldier’s eyes despite how he tries not to. But there is definitely frustration there, like he doesn’t appreciate Steve going easy on him and fuck if that doesn’t do funny things to Steve’s insides. He’s never had an opponent like the Soldier before, never expected to ever meet someone who could rise to a challenge just as well as himself.

Steve throws a glare in the direction of agent Allard, wishing that looks could kill. It’s undeniably his fault that Steve and the Soldier can’t fight like equals – everything was fun until he came and put entirely new stakes on their duels.

 

 

**Monday, 07.42 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4**

Steve isn’t even surprised when the Winter Soldier gets sent out for a mission and he’s not on the team this time. He doesn’t even try going above agent Allard’s head and plead with Commander Pierce to be allowed to go, because he knows it’s no use. HYDRA doesn’t give rewards for failure, they don’t care how much you _want_ something. Hell, Steve is lucky that he hasn’t been disciplined for who terrible he’s been performing in the gym lately. Then on the other hand, his superiors might consider getting his head bashed by a metal-fist on the regular punishment enough.

But the feeling of helplessness as he watches the Soldier go claws at his insides. It’s the worst he’s felt since he was given the serum. When he was young and fragile the sense of helplessness was always there in the back of his mind, constant just like the chronic pain and the pressure on his lungs. The serum erased it – made him strong and fast and respected and had him feeling like there was nothing he couldn’t do. He had thought that the serum was going to be a magic fix – that he’d gain muscle-mass and become healthy and then he’d never be helpless again. That once he became strong and tall he’d be able to handle himself against everything and anyone. The irony tasted like bile in the back of his mouth as he walked back toward his room with a terrible sense of dread in his stomach.

The mission is expected to be quick and straightforward, but they bring the Soldier to make an example out of the targets. A division of HYDRA scientists based in Canada has been defying orders and recently cut communications with the rest of the organization. It there is one thing HYDRA doesn’t tolerate it is disloyalty and what better way to scare others off than to bring in the Winter Soldier to punish them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whopwhop! How do you think the mission is going to go? ;)
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> Also - Kudos and especially comments keeps me inspired!
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> Also also - I didn't trust google translate enough to help with the french in this episode.
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> Also also also - if anyone is interested in pre-reading and discussing the plot with me before I post the coming chapters let me know, I could really use someone to shoot ideas with!


	9. the First Defiance

**Sunday, 04.00 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, Commander Pierce’s office**

Its three days since agent Allard and his team was supposed to be back and Steve isn’t the least bit guilty about the unconscious guard at his feet as he steps over it to get into Commander Pierce’s office. He had been asking nicely for as many days, but the Commander had refused to see him and Steve only had two options – believe the official story about what had happened to agent Allard’s team or make Commander Pierce tell him the truth. It was no choice really.

The spacious office is more crowded than he’d expected when he gets through the door, seven guns immediately trained on him and it stops him just across the threshold. Commander Pierce has tripled his usual guard, six people ready to fight any enemy instead of his usual two. But what surprises Steve the most is the seventh gun, held firmly in the Commander’s own hand and pointed straight at him. Everyone knows that Commander Pierce’s weapon of choice is blackmail, emotional manipulation and words, he was never one to get his own hands bloody and the fact that he’s currently pointing a gun at one of his own agents like he’s ready to use it tells Steve that this is way worse than he initially expected. The guards and Pierce all look like they were expecting him to bring and army and have the third world war start right then and there.

He immediately raises his hands, glad that he didn’t change from his workout-clothes so that the guards can easily see that he’s not armed with anything other than his fists. He’d been prepared to fight the two regular guards off long enough to convince the Commander to talk to him for five minutes – he wasn’t expecting the other four and several deadly weapons. The Winter Soldier would probably have been able to disarm them all, but Steve doubts his own chances and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone more than necessary. He came here to talk to the Commander, not get anyone killed.

Pierce seems to be able to read that off Steve’s surprised expression and after a minute he signals the guards to stand down and Steve takes a relived breath. Coming in, he only had the one question. Now he’s got about fifty, starting with what the hell happened that has Commander Pierce this paranoid.

“Agent Rogers, to what do I-“ The Commander glances to the knocked out guard just outside the door. “-owe the pleasure?” He finishes, like he doesn’t already know why Steve was so desperate to see him he resorted to violence against his own brothers.

“What happened?” Steve demands with a lot more authority than he actually has.

“Our plane malfunctioned. It blew up just over the Pacific Ocean. No one could have survived.” The Commander says with practiced ease, just the right amount of sadness and anger to sell the story to anyone who wouldn’t question authority. Steve wouldn’t buy it if it was on sale and the lets the Commander know it with a glare, refusing to back down from their staring-match. Never say Steve Rogers wasn’t stubborn to a fault.

Two minutes pass until the Commander breaks, takes his hands off the desk and puts the gun he was still holding down. He gives Steve an impressed once-over, laughing to himself.

“You have been underestimated, agent Rogers.” He says.

Steve knows that this isn’t the time for his attitude, in fact he should probably be glad the guards haven’t put several bullets in him for his insolence already. But he can’t help feeling insulted by the fact that Pierce believed that he was dumb enough to buy the official story. He doesn’t concede, keeps glaring at the commander and he is prepared to keep it up for as long as it takes, even if it results in a few gunshot wounds eventually.

He can see the Commander consider him for a few long moments before the man takes a breath and waves dismissingly to his guards. Five of them breaks off and leaves the room, one stopping to pick up the still unconscious guard outside the door and alright, Steve feels a little bad about knocking the man out. The sixth guard closes the door behind them and stands between it and the Commander, letting him know that he better react the way Pierce want him to or he’s not leaving the office.

“The mutiny turned out to be bigger than we knew. It wasn’t just a few scientists who strayed from protocol. It was a trap and their weapons were more advanced than we accounted for. They are currently holding the team hostage.” The Commander explained, disturbingly calmly while he was obviously looking closely for Steve’s reaction to the fact.

“What do they want?” Steve asked, trying to keep his voice neutral and failing miserably.

“Nothing of concern. What they want is irrelevant. We wouldn’t give it to them if they asked for five dollars and a pop-tart. HYDRA does not negotiate.” The Commander’s voice said all Steve needed to know – e wasn’t going to be swayed on this, Steve could try and beg for the lives of the team all he wanted  there wouldn’t be any negotiations.

“Are you planning a rescue-mission?” Steve said immediately, his back straightening automatically as he prepared to volunteer for said mission with his next breath.

“There won’t be any rescue-mission, agent Rogers.” The Commander said before Steve had the chance to sign up though, and it took Steve a while to understand what the man was implying exactly. Of course there had to be a rescue-mission – how else would they get the team back if HYDRA didn’t plan on negotiating?

“What-“ Steve started, but his question was answered before he could even ask it, by the hard set of Pierce’s mouth. What would happen to the team? They would be left to suffer the consequences of their failure. They had allowed themselves to get caught and in the eyes of HYDRA they didn’t deserve to be rescued. Their deaths were acceptable sacrifices so that HYDRA could uphold their principles. Maybe it would even serve as a warning to the other agents, motivate them to fight even better because if they didn’t they be left to themselves.

“We are sending two destroyers the day after tomorrow. The headlines will blame al-Qaida operatives. It will be good for the economy in the long run, more jobs in the military-sector.”

Steve was speechless.

“What about the Winter Solider?” He asked, once he regained his ability to form words and thoughts. Surely the Winter Soldier was too valuable to HYDRA to just let him be collateral damage in a ploy to _boost the economy_.

“Surely you mean ‘what about agent Allard?’ Agent Rogers?” The Commander asked with a raised eyebrow, giving Steve a chance to correct himself and prove that his priorities was the Soldier’s handler and not the Asset itself.

“I really don’t.” He snapped without even considering the Commander’s offer to pretend. He felt bad for the other agents on the team, of course, agent Rumlow included, but he couldn’t care less about the fate of agent Allard. As far as Steve was concerned agent Allard being blown up by his own organization was Karma at its finest, but it wasn’t worth it if it was at the expense of the rest of the team and the Winter Soldier’s life.

He opens his mouth to protest, to convince the Commander that it would be a waste to just let the agents die without even trying to extract them, but he doesn’t get a sound out before the Commander rises to stand behind his desk.

“I said no, and that is final agent Rogers.” Commander Pierce cuts him off, the force of the entire American HYDRA division behind his words and it actually shuts Steve up, mid-argument. He can’t remember anyone managing to do that before, and the Commander deserves some credit. It does nothing to change Steve’s mind though, and when he storms out of the room he doesn’t head for his room.

He’s got his phone in hand the second he turns a corner, out of earshot from guards waiting just outside the Commander’s office. They don’t trail him despite his obvious disagreement about the course of action with the Commander’s plan of action but this time he’s thankful instead of insulted that Pierce has underestimated him again. He’s a good soldier when the situations demands it and usually he follows orders to the letter, he likes it even, the straightforwardness of having a task to do and a role to play. But he’s capable of doing his own thinking and his conscious wouldn’t let him follow an order that was clearly wrong.

The dial-tone rings three times, enough that it has Steve swearing loudly at the device in his hand before his call is finally picked up.

 _“Hypothetically: If I wanted to highjack a jet and disable the base-override-protocols, could you guide me through it?”_ He says as soon as he hears Sky answer on her end of the call, already moving toward the base’s hangar as fast as his enhanced legs will take him.

 _“Uuuhm.”_ Sky chokes out, like this was the last call she ever expected to get, and Steve kind of gets it. But he doesn’t have time for it.

 _“Could you?”_ He presses, as he enters an eight-digit-code he definitely shouldn’t know to get past a locked door that’s a good few grades above his security-clearance. Standing behind Captain Walker so many times when the man entered the same code and _not_ look and memorize it would have been irresponsible. And hey, Steve had good intentions – it wasn’t like he was going to steal weapons and betray the organization – he was borrowing a jet and going on an unsanctioned rescue-mission and the two were completely different.

 _“Dude, you’re going to owe me so big your grandchildren will still be trying to pay the debt back when they’re old.”_ Sky says after so much silence that Steve had started considering what phrasing would get him the best results if he tried to google how to highjack a military-grade-fighter-plain.

_“I know Sky. It’s for a good cause, I wouldn’t ask you-“_

_“Yeah yeah, now shut up and listen. I’ve deactivated the alarm, but you’re going to have to do the rest yourself-”_

 

 

**Monday, 08.20 PM, Steve Rogers, Canada, Base 11**

“The FUCK are you doing here Rogers?” Steve is almost happy to hear Rumlow swear at him and that speaks volumes to how wound up he’d been on the plane-ride over. He breaks the zip-ties around the man’s wrists with a knife from his pocket, careful not to cut the man as he squirms like he’s actively trying to make rescuing him harder than it has to be.

“You’re welcome.” Steve says as he straightens his back, moves over to the next agent over to untie him as well. He tries not to sound smug about it, because this is a rescue-mission (unsanctioned as it might be) and he came here to try and save his fellow agents because it was the right thing to do. He didn’t come just to prove himself superior to Brock Rumlow, like some elaborate ploy to make Brock owe him something. But he can’t deny that it is pretty satisfying that he managed to sneak into the heart of the base undetected on his own when Brock’s entire team had been captured trying to do the same. The pride must have seeped into his voice because Rumlow glares at him in a way that makes him a little grateful for the super-serum and the escape-plan that makes him untouchable.

He hands Brock his knife as he frees another agent and they work together quickly to get everyone on the team lose, Brock cutting the zip-ties with the knife and Steve breaking them with his hands.

“What’s the situation?” He asks in the meantime, voice just above a whisper. The guards posted outside the door were dead before they could even see Steve coming and he hadn’t seen any other signs of activity down the long corridor, but one could never be too certain. The element of surprise was a key element to the success of the mission and Steve needed to make sure they kept it for as long as possible.

“Three times the numbers we thought, most of them soldiers. Some really efficient knock-out-gas that our masks won’t filter and they seem to be immune to. Didn’t seem to effect the Soldier so you should be fine, but they have restraints to hold him so watch out for that.” Brock answers in the same hushed voice. “They’re batshit crazy, formed some kind of cult within HYDRA.”

“A cult?”

“Someone read some ancient scrips on some wall and managed to convince the base that some god is real and that he’s coming and that they should pay tribute to it and give it something it wants.”

“A god?” Steve asks skeptically. He knew that a lot of HYDRA’s research went outside the bounds of normal science and ventured into the world of occult beliefs and lore but he’d never seen proof that the supernatural existed and until the time he refused to believe in fairytales.

“Told you, crazy.” Rumlow said rolling his shoulders and stretching his back out as the last agent was freed.

“Where’s the Winter Soldier?” Steve asked. He wasn’t in the room with the rest of the agents (that was the first thing Steve had looked for once he’d barged through the door, including before he’d looked for enemy soldiers’ and that had earned him a bruise on his jaw that was already fading) and Steve wasn’t leaving without him.

“Fuck the Soldier, that’s not your priority. They’re holding agent Allard two floors up, get him and the team and I will take care of the rest of the base.” Steve opened his mouth to argue but Rumlow cut him off. “That’s an order Rogers.”

“Fine.” _Not fine_.

Steve handed two of the guns he’d taken from the soldier’s outside to Rumlow, who had obviously been stripped clean of his own weapons. He didn’t have enough to spare for any of the other agents but it shouldn’t be too difficult for them to get more now that they had the element of surprise. Then he exited the room through the door he’d come from and darted to the stairwell before Rumlow and the rest of them could follow him to see where he was going.

He glanced up and allowed himself a moment’s pause to think. If agent Allard was kept a few floors above him chances were the Soldier wasn’t kept on the same floor. Keeping the Soldier and his handler close to each other would be reckless, better to put as much distance between them as possible in case one of them got lose. Keeping the Soldier high would make for a high flight-risk, he was resilient enough that falling a few stories wouldn’t limit his ability to escape and the metal hand was bound to make him a good climber. Better to keep him underground and limit the ways of escape so he’d have to fight his way up if he got free.

Steve started making his way downstairs before he could finish his own thought, tankful that his enhanced reflexes kept him from falling a few flights down every now and then when he was about to miss a step. His guess was proven right when he literally ran into a group of guards a few stories down. They were heavily armed and obviously guarding something important, but they weren’t expecting him and he got the drop on them.

Kicking one body into another and sending three guns he could get his hands on while doing so over the edge of the stairwell was easy. He broke the semi-automatic pointed at him into two pieces before the guard holding it could even pull the trigger and rendered the guard who came out of the door they’d been guarding unconscious by throwing one of the pieces at his head.

The two disarmed guy’s he’d kicked back got themselves sorted out during that time and got a few punches in while he had his back turned on them, distracted by the urgent task of getting the phone out of the fourth soldier’s hand to keep him from alerting the rest of the base of the intrusion. Once the phone was smashed against a wall and its owner thrown over the stair-railing to a back-breaking fall one of the other guards had managed to hit Steve twice over the head with a pierce of railing that Steve must have pulled lose at some point. He turned on the other two guards, taking the piece of iron from the guard as he swung it a third time and returned the favor, not bothering to look at the pool of blood inching toward his boots as the body fell.

“Where’s the Winter Soldier?” He asked, turning to the last guard standing. Or well, being held a feet above the ground by Steve’s hand around his neck, but figuratively speaking the last one standing.

“Go to hell.” The guard spat between heavy breaths.

“You’re going to show me, or you’ll be the one in hell.” Steve threatened, hands tightening around the man’s neck until he was starting to look a bit blue. He could go searching the building himself, he was most likely on the right floor, but he didn’t have much time before Rumlow and the others had taken care of the rest of the base and he had to find and save agent Allard too by then.

“I don’t fear death. I will die like a warrior and feast with the gods in Valhalla.” The man said and Steve had to allow himself a second to roll his eyes at that, because okay, Brock had been right. Not only where these people crazy, they were apparently also literalists when it came to Norse mythology. Wonderful. He didn’t know a whole lot about the lore, but as he skimmed over the basics in his mind he remembered one thing that might make an impact.

“Only warriors go to Valhalla though right?” Steve asked the man, letting the grip around his throat up just a little to allow some more blood-flow to the guard’s brain. He seemed to need all the help he could get with the thinking. “What about cowards who take their own lives after spending weeks alone in a dark cell? Surely the god’s won’t want someone covered in their own feces at their feast.” He said, feeling completely ridiculous for playing into the man’s delusions, but sometimes even Steve knew when to pick his battles, and that there were some battles that were best avoided.

The man’s confidence drained at hearing Steve’s logic and he swept his eyes over the carnage around them, like he just then realized that he couldn’t physically fight Steve and expect to win. “Take a right and it’s the third door down on the left. You’ll need a thumbprint to get in.” The man said, voice shaking as he betrayed his brothers for an honorable death.

“Will your thumbprint do?” Steve asked, not waiting for a verbal reply as the man’s eyes fluttered to the unconscious guard at Steve’s feet. He shot the guard with the man’s own gun, realizing that his own was out of bullets from the entrance he’d made.

He picked off the guard with the key-thumbprint and threw him over his shoulder as he exited the stairwell and followed the instructions he’d been given. The thumbprint worked and the door slid open without triggering any kind of alarm that Steve could notice. He put the guard’s body down in the doorway like a doorstop, figuring it was best to be on the safe side in case the door decided to lock from the inside.

He spotted the Winter Solider immediately once looked inside the room, held to the wall behind him by cuffs wide enough to cover almost his entire forearms. He was struggling against the cuffs but there was no real strength behind it, like he was doing it more on principal than because he was actually expecting to get free. He was separated from the rest of the room by some kind of glass walls which turned out to be bulletproof, not that Steve was surprised by that. It would have been way too easy if they hadn’t been. The Solider looked furious at being imprisoned and Steve felt his pulse pick up a little in anticipation as he imagined what kind of vengeance the Soldier would exact on the base fueled by that kind of anger.

The glass walls were apparently soundproof as well, because when the Solider noticed Steve he started to move his lips, but Steve couldn’t hear what he was saying. At least it seemed like the Soldier recognized Steve and judging the way the fury in his eyes became a bit tempered he drew the conclusion that Steve was backup and not another traitor to HYDRA. Steve walked up to the glass-cage trying to inspect it for weaknesses but when he got closer he realized that the Soldier was trying to communicate with him. The man’s eyes flitted meaningfully over to a table in the far end of the room and Steve changed directions.

He recognized one of the weapons on the table, the large gun that the Soldier had used in the Mexican desert on their first mission. The table looked like a prop-table for some ridiculously out decked spy-movie in Hollywood and Steve kind of wondered how one person could wear _that_ many weapons into the field. The Soldier’s tactical gear only had so many pockets and holsters and some of those weapons had to be fucking heavy. Looking over his shoulder at the Solider he noticed the man’s second attempt at silent communication. His arms were incapacitated by the cuffs, but he conveyed his message clear enough as his lips formed a “boom” and his eyes twinkled with anticipation.

Grenades it was then.

Steve picked up two of those round silvery balls for good measure and flipped the table over to carry it with him a few feet until he was in a position where he would be the least hit by the blast. He felt a bit bad for the Solider who couldn’t cover his ears, but a close-up-blast and a headache was at the least better than being in the path of a destroyer.

It took three grenades for the glass to finally crack and break and by then any level of discretion Steve had been hoping to maintain was just as shattered. The alarm sounding through the room was probably resonating with the entire building and he could only hope that Rumlow and the rest of the team had made some progress before they were discovered. He stepped over the shattered glass and with the combined force of his strength and the Soldier’s metal arm they managed to get him out of the cuffs. They seemed to have a magnetic pull that attached them to the wall – Steve wasn’t really all that interested in the mechanics once they weren’t a problem anymore.

“You okay?” He asked the Solider dropped forward, slumping toward Steve like he wanted to lean on him to steady himself before he thought better of it and straightened his back, stubborn determination etched in his face. He gave a sharp nod in reply and Steve resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. They’d been here before.

“Are you injured?” He rephrased, hoping that the more specific question would get him an answer.

“No.” The Solider said and started heading toward the pile of weapons where they’d ended up when Steve used the table under them as a shield for the blast. He bent down to pick up the weapons on the floor and started strapping them back to his body and Steve tried assessing his condition for himself. The Soldier’s Kevlar vest was ripped at his right shoulder, but it didn’t look like was any blood so the heavy material might have stopped a knife from cutting into flesh. The usually shiny metal arm had a few specs of soot on it, and Steve guesses it was from deflecting bullets with the thing. The Soldier’s hair was all kinds off messy, hanging in strands in his face and Steve really hoped that the blood that’s caking it together at places belonged to someone (or several someone’s) else because there was a lot of it. But overall the Solider looks alright as he quickly reassembled his arsenal.

“Rumlow said they’re keeping Allard on level five, we should get up there.” Steve said once the Solider looked up at him expectantly, obviously waiting for an order. The Solider flinched noticeably at the mention of his handler and Steve wished they didn’t have to risk their asses to save the man, but they did. Rumlow outranked Steve and disregarding a direct order to save another superior would get him into enough trouble all in of itself even if he hadn’t borrowed (stolen) a jet and gone on an unsanctioned one-man-mission. And not to mention that coming back from said unsanctioned rescue-mission without having actually rescued the most high-ranking agent would definitely not work in Steve’s favor once they were back at the base.

The Soldier gave another nod, looking resigned but no less determined as he started heading out the door Steve had come through. They worked their way up the stairwell and Steve was thankful for the amount of weapons the Solider carried, in addition to his extra supplies of ammo. The stairwell was crawling with agents now that the alarm was blasting at full volume and the agents must have been notified that the Solider had escaped. They bust out of the stairwell on the fifth floor short of breath just as Steve was starting to wonder how the hell there could be so _many_ agents on the base. Had Brock and his team not been able to shoot a single one? Seriously?

The Soldier used his metal arm to hold the door shut since the bullets spraying through didn’t do any damage to the limb and the both of them glanced around the hallway they were in for something barricade it with. Luckily the base was disguised as an office building (or maybe it was a HYDRA-office, Steve didn’t actually know much about the organization outside the base he lived in and the missions he’d gone on) and there were plenty of heavy file-cabinets to use. He stacked two of them against the door and the Solider removed his arm to help, lifting two cabinets at once where Steve only took one at a time. He raised an eyebrow and threw the Soldier a sideways glance, asking a silent “seriously?” and barley containing his laughter as the Soldier placed the two cabinets to the stack. Because they were currently being shot at in an enemy facility and this was not the time to show off or kid around.

“What?” The Soldier asked, obviously feigning innocence like he wasn’t doing anything, like picking up twice the load Steve was carrying was just the most efficient way of working.

“The metal arm is totally cheating, you know.” Steve said, putting down his own cabinet and stepping aside as a box full of files slid out and scattered over the floor. The spray of bullets stopped coming through the door, stopped by the cabinets and Steve quickly turned to assess where agent Allard might be held on the floor.

“You saying I couldn’t take you on without the arm?” The Solider questions with attitude, following Steve as he starts down the closest row of open landscape-offices.

“Yes.” Steve says, way more confident than he actually feels about the fact. The arm helps, but that’s definitely not what makes the Winter Solider HYDRA’s most revered weapon. He hears the Soldier huff in amusement as they once again disagree on who is the better fighter, but the sound is abruptly cut short. The hairs on Steve’s neck rises as he feels a knife whirl through the air, just an inch away from his face. The thumping sound of a body hitting the ground follows, no gurgling or crying out for help, proving that the Soldier’s aim was impeccable. Steve hadn’t even seen the agent before the Soldier had had a chance to both notice the man and aim a weapon at him.

When Steve turns to look at the Soldier the amused expression is completely gone from his face, his eyes dark as he slips into the assassin HYDRA trained him to be. Steve finds it a bit harder to flip his modes on and off again, but then, he’s nowhere near as disciplined as the Soldier. He turns forward and focuses his attention on the task ahead instead of the man behind him, and once he hears the muffled sound of voices he finds it easier to concentrate on the mission again.

They stop just around a corner in front of a glassed-in office filled with agents armed to their teeth. Three of them are frantically discussing something, waving their arms in disagreement and one of them slamming a fist into a desk to prove some point. One of them presses a phone to their ear and holds his hand up and things quiet down enough for Steve to be able to make out some of what they’re saying.

“…lose in the building…”

“…twelve agents dead in the stairwell alone…”

“…a second squad?”

“No HYDRA wouldn’t send another team-“

“They obviously did there’s no way he could have escaped by himself-“

“…they just confirmed that it is the Winter Solider, he escaped somehow-“

“HOW could this happen?”

Steve forgets to breathe as he recognizes the voice of the last man as he shouts, shutting the rest of the nervous chatter down. It can’t be – but it is. He glances over to the Solider who looks like he has the same reaction as Steve does to that voice before looking back into the office, and as the agents inside shuffles around a bit the profile of agent Allard is reviled. He isn’t captured or held against his will, judging by the body language of the other agents inside the office he is one of the guys in charge.

“What the-“ Steve starts before he thinks better of it and lowers his voice. “Allard is working _with_ them?” He hisses.

“That makes sense.” The Soldier says from behind him, making Steve whip around to face him so fast it almost makes his head spin. Nothing about this makes sense. Not the religious subdivision going rouge and certainly not agent Allard being a part of it.

“How does that any make sense?” Steve whispers, trying to keep an eye on the office and the Soldier at the same time and not go cross-eyed for it.

“I-“ the Solider starts, but he cuts himself off immediately and seems to be having some inner struggle about what to say. Steve thinks he might be worried? Like he did something wrong and if he tells Steve he’s going to be punished, but he also can’t not tell it. “Splitting up and coming in from two directions would have been the most efficient strategy. But agent Allard decided we should all go in through the roof. I-“ The Soldier hesitates again, takes a breath before he fesses up.

“I didn’t question him.” He finishes and Steve doesn’t really understand how a 6 feet super-soldier with at least eleven weapons on his body at the time (not including the metal arm) can manage to look so cowering. It takes Steve a minute of time they shouldn’t be sparing to realize that the Soldier expects Steve to react with anger to the knowledge. As if Steve would have been angry at the Soldier for not daring to go against his handler’s command _before_ he’d seen the surveillance-tapes, much less now when he knows firsthand how the Soldier is treated at an imagined slight. Even if the Solider had spoken up Steve doubted that anyone on the team would have listened to him, considering how hard Rumlow had been working his way up agent Allard’s ass the past week. This wasn’t the time to get emotionally distraught at the thought of the Winter Soldier having a bad feeling about a mission but forced to go ahead with the plan anyway because no one would listen to him even if he spoke up and risked getting tortured for it. So Steve didn’t. Become worked up, that was.

“M’ gonna kill him.” Steve said, gripping the gun in his hand harder and checking that all of his other weapons were located where he expected them to be.

“Wait.“ Steve catches himself just before he’s about to lunge out from their hiding place. “If Allard flipped, how come he had you locked up?” He asks, the logic not adding up as he thinks about it.

“Commander Pierce gave me the mission orders. Not Allard. My order is to destroy the traitors and set an example for anyone who’s inspired by them. Doesn’t matter that my handler turned out to be one of them. I don’t disobey orders.” The Solider explained in a detached tone of voice, like he was speaking about someone else and not himself. “Allard was keeping me locked up until he could figure out a way around the order, re-set me or get me to break. But I wasn’t a priority.” Steve swallowed at the thought of agent Allard trying to break the Soldier enough to circumvent orders and thanked the Norse gods (it seemed fitting considering the circumstances) that he hadn’t made the Soldier a priority.

“So it’s not going to be a problem if we go in?” Steve asked, mentally punching himself for not thinking about this the second he realized that agent Allard was a traitor. One order from him might force the Soldier to obey him instead of Steve and the rescue-mission would turn into a massacre for sure.

“No, he is a target now.” There was something dark behind those words that went way deeper than an assassin going after a target, the Soldier’s metal hand wasn’t clenching into a fist at the thought of just finishing another mission. Steve kind of hated that he had to deny the Soldier his chance at revenge.

“We need to bring him back alive though. He needs to be interrogated.” Steve forced the words out. Knowing the truth behind them didn’t make it any less pleasant. But as bad as he wanted to kill Allard himself this was the right thing to do. And besides, interrogation at the hands of HYDRA wasn't exactly a pleasant experience and Steve was already considering what arguments to use to get him into that interrogation-room.

“Yes, sir.” The Soldier said, confirming that he understood the order and they didn’t have time for Steve to apologize for the fact, or protest the way the Soldier called him sir, because the men inside the office started to exit it like they were changing locations.

They got out from around their corner, Steve ducking as the Soldier went in front since that made most sense – he had the metal arm to deflect bullets with. The Solider hit three targets in rapid success, not a bullet wasted or missed. Steve shattered the glass in the office and shot two agents of his own as they went down in the mess off splintered glass. Steve grabbed one of the three grenades left in the Soldier’s belt since the Soldier had his hands full with his guns and sent if flying into the biggest cluster of agents. The blast from the explosion sent most of the agents reeling back as Steve and the Soldier took the opportunity to press forward.

The Soldier had a bullet graze his left arm, Steve’s fists hurts from punching through the surprisingly sturdy material of the helmets several of the agents wore and they had to duck for a while as some of the agent started hurling flaming pieces of a desk toward them, but a minute later they were joined by Brock’s team who must have heard the explosion. Twenty-five minutes later half the floor was on fire and the only one left standing of the targets was agent Allard, his weapon thrown out a broken window as he was knocked unconscious for the peace of mind of everyone as he started screaming about how some Loke-Lowkey-god wasn’t going to forgive any of them for this.

Steve tried not to not feel smug about the face Rumlow made as he realized that he’d been sucking up to a traitor to the organization and a lunatic at that for the last few days.

Cramming into the jet with the additional agents was a chore, Steve hadn’t exactly prioritized the available seats when he borrowed (stole) it. Another agent volunteered to fly it and Steve was happy to concede the pilot-seat to her since the ride over had been a bit bumpy. Steve could fly a jet of course, that was covered in the basic training to become an agent, but he’d be lying if he didn’t say he preferred driving a car. The Soldier was quiet and shut off during the flight, had been ever since the mission was accomplished and Steve didn’t try engaging him when they had an audience.


	10. the Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings, this chapter contains graphic descriptions of non-con, you have been warned and the tags for the story has been updated.

**Wednesday, 07.30 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4**

Steve wasn’t exactly surprised when the welcome-home-parade meeting them at the hangar consisted of twenty-five heavily armed guards with their guns fixated specifically on him. They’d radioed in once they entered American airspace to let the base know that they were coming back, the mission was more or less a success, agent Allard was a traitor and Steve hadn’t stolen the fighter-jet permanently. He’d received a few pats on the back from the agents he’d saved, and even Brock had swallowed his pride to shake Steve’s hand and admit that they would probably be dead in the fire of the destroyer by now if Steve hadn’t come for them. But he didn’t expect a warm receiving from Commander Pierce and the female agent who’d flown the jet home even sent him a look of sympathy as they landed. He’d smiled back at her before going to face the music, dreading the melody a bit but not regretting his actions for a second.

“Agent Rogers! Hands in the air.” A man shouted the second he stepped outside of the jet, not that he needed to – Steve had already left his weapons back in the plane and was keeping his hands high and away from his body. He’d known what the consequences of his disobedience would be and he wasn’t going to try and run from them like a coward.

“I surrender myself to disciplinary action.” Steve said. He might have imagined a pardon and a round of applause for bravery and heroism if this had been any other organization, but at is stood he was glad that the armed agents relaxed the grip on their guns slightly. Four of them ran up to him, two grabbing each of his arms like they could actually drag him anywhere if he didn’t let them.

What did surprise him though was when one the agents on his left side was suddenly wrenched away with force. Steve almost fell over the two on his right as his weight shifted, before catching himself. He threw the guards still holding him off unintentionally as he whipped around to see what happened, only to see the Winter Soldier soccer-punch an agent in the face. The armored helmet the agent wore cracked like cheap plastic under the metal fist and that was unmistakably two teeth falling out on the ground next to the man as he went down. Steve’s eyes immediately searched for agent Allard, wondering if he had woken up and managed to override the Soldier’s orders to get him to fight them, but the handler still appeared to be inside the jet because Steve couldn’t see him.

The agents sent to collect Steve quickly advanced on Steve and the Soldier, training their guns on both of them and Steve scrambled to find a way to deescalate the situation before they pumped the Soldier full off bullets. As they came closer the Soldier stopped beating on the second guard he’d thrown off Steve, dropping him to the ground and came up to stand next to Steve, close enough that their sides touched. The Soldier’s posture was defensive, like an animal backed into a corner with no other choice but to fight, and just as the thought entered Steve’s mind the Soldier _growled_. A deep sound from the bottom of his throat, a clear warning and it made all of the twenty-one agents advancing on them falter a bit in their step. Steve could see them looking at one another wearily and all it would take was one itchy trigger-finger twitching a bit too much.

He cast a glance at the Soldier who had subtly angled his body to be just a little bit in front of Steve’s, like the thing he was defending was _Steve_. That threw him for a few seconds, made his mind spin as he desperately tried to keep himself levelheaded. Steve didn’t think that the Soldier would be the first one to attack, judging by the defensive posture the Solider still kept and what Steve knew about the Soldier so far. But he didn’t doubt that the second the other agents moved the Soldier would pounce on them.

“Wait, wait!” Steve tried, one arm in front of him to signal the agents to stop and stand down. It didn’t have much of an effect. He’d have to talk the Soldier down if he didn’t want this to end bloody.

“Hey.” He turned to the Soldier, putting his hand on the man’s flesh shoulder. The contact made the Soldier flinch, like he expected pain to come from the touch. Steve kept his hand though, trying to establish some form of contact. “Hey, you don’t want to do this Soldier.” He tried.

The Soldier slowly turned his head to look at Steve, scowling at the other agents first like a warning: just because I’m not looking doesn’t mean I’m not aware of everything you do and I can still kill all of you before you pull your triggers. He looked at Steve for a few moments, intense eyes as ever before his forehead wrinkled into a frown.

“You saved them.” The Soldier said, keeping his voice low probably so that the other agents wouldn’t hear. Steve nodded in reply because he had no idea what to say to that. He desperately wanted to dig deeper into why the Soldier didn’t say ‘you saved us’ instead of ‘them’ but this wasn’t exactly the time for that, considering the fact that there were still guns trained at them.

“They are going to hurt you.” The Soldier continued, his voice surprisingly soft for that of a walking deathtrap. The raw and unconcealed emotion in the Soldier’s voice took Steve by complete surprise, like that metal-arm had reached inside his chest, grabbed his heart and squeezed it.

“I disobeyed a direct order.” Steve admitted, and the Soldier seemed surprised by that, opening and closing his mouth once like he couldn’t think of anything to say to that but wanted to. Steve could see the question in the Soldier’s eyes though, the ‘why?’ “It was the right thing to do.” He said, only telling the partial truth because this wasn’t exactly the ideal moment to confess that he’d gone rogue to save the Soldier. The other agents didn’t need to get a chance to overhear that.

“Soldier! Stand down.” The order was sharp and full of venom, enough to snap both Steve and the Soldier into attention as they recognized Commander Pierce’s voice. “What’s this all about?” The man said, pushing through the lines of armed agents who still hadn’t lowered their weapons despite the fact that the Soldier was looking much less threatening now, head down and hands open by his sides. “I thought I told you to bring Agent Rogers in, not have a goddamn chat out in the open.”

“Sorry sir.” The agent who’d ordered Steve to put his hands up before, probably the one in charge. “The Soldier-“

“I’ll deal with the Soldier.” Commander Pierce cut the man off and turned to Steve with a stern look. “And then I’ll deal with you.” Steve felt himself cower just a little under that kind of threat. Consequences be damned was an easy philosophy when those consequences were far off. Not as much when you were facing said consequences. He spared a quick glance at the Soldier who seemed to be waging an inner battel behind the bangs hanging in his face. He was obviously bound to Commander Pierce’s order to stand down, but he looked torn up at the prospect of not being able to fight to keep Steve safe. It was such an unexpected reaction from the Soldier that Steve still had a hard time wrapping his head around it.

He gave the Soldier a small nudge with his shoulder, getting his attention and whispering: “Hey, don’t worry about it Soldier. I can take it.” He said, forcing a short smile on his face as he said it. Last thing he wanted to do was get the Soldier into more trouble. The Soldier getting punished for disobedience wasn’t worth sparing Steve a little pain for something he deserved getting punished for.

 

 

**Wednesday, 09.00 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, Interrogation-room D**

Steve got up from the chair he was sitting in the second Commander Pierce got into the room, standing to attention and respectfully ducking his head to his superior. He’d broken enough rules for a normal agent’s entire lifespan and he was certain that the Commander wouldn’t forgive anything other than Steve being on his very best behavior for a very long time from now on. And that was all fine – he’d done what he had to do, he’d saved the Soldier (and of course the other agents) but it wasn’t like he’d been planning on rising up against the entire organization or something equally radical.

“Agent Rogers.” The Commander sighed, signaling for Steve to take his seat again so he did. “What am I going to do with you?” He asked, obviously rhetorically and Steve had to force himself to keep his mouth shut or he’d start suggesting things. The Commander remained quiet for a while, most likely a scare-tactic to get Steve squirming, but he was determined not to let it get to him. He knew he was walking a fine line, balancing strength and obedience as his life probably did depend on it. He couldn’t drop to his knees and beg the Commander for his forgiveness (even if he’d been willing to do that) because that would make him seem weak and HYDRA had no use for people like that in its ranks, but he couldn’t be too stoic or the Commander might see him as a threat.

“You disobeyed a direct order, stole a plane, intervened in an ongoing mission without clearance and risked unnecessary exposure. I’m sure you know one of these offences alone could get you executed.” The Commander said, fixating Steve with a stern look.

“Yes sir.” Steve answered, not arguing with any of it because it was true.

“But on the other hand you saved an important mission that was failing. You took out a big threat to the organization. You exposed the disloyalty of Agent Allard and brought him back for questioning, we wouldn’t have gotten that if we had deployed the destroyers. You retrieved the Winter Soldier and eighteen agents thought to be dead. They are already calling you a hero.” Steve’s head shot up in surprise at that last part and his reaction had the Commander raise an eyebrow.

“Oh yes. Even Brock Rumlow has some nice things to say about you, and I know usually he would disagree with you if you said the sky is blue.” Steve bit pack a scoff at the comment.

“So that leaves me in quite the predicament. I can’t execute you, and to be honest I wouldn’t want to. You are an asset to HYDRA, agent Rogers. Not only because of the serum in your body. You work hard and you don’t get distracted and during the last few missions you’ve been on you have constantly proved that you are clever and true leadership-material.” Steve tried not to beam at the praise because he knew that there was a ‘but’ coming, but it felt good to have the Commander recognize his strengths.

“But the chain of command needs to be clear within HYDRA. We all know that without proper guidance and control the world will tear itself apart, and unfortunately our own ranks are no different. Your tendencies to disrespect authority has been pointed out by several of your superiors and fellow agents over the years.” Steve swallowed and nodded in understanding. It wasn’t like he knew that his mouth was going to get him in trouble eventually but it wasn’t like he went against orders just to be difficult. Sometimes the orders given to him were just plain wrong and he couldn’t in good conscious abide by them.

“I’m assigning you to be the Soldier’s handler.” Steve’s eyes went wide at the revelation. That was way more than he’d expected in to get for at least a few years. “Temporarily.” The Commander added sternly, and Steve nodded in acceptance. Of course – HYDRA didn’t just give things away for free, you had to prove yourself worthy of them.

“Do not mistake this for a reward, agent Rogers. You are on strict probation and you will not disobey another order again. I see you so much as _wanting_ to disobey your superiors I will make sure you and the Soldier both regret it.” Steve immediately opened his mouth to protest once the Commander dragged the Soldier into his threat – this wasn’t about the Soldier and he shouldn’t be punished for anything Steve might or might not do but he managed to snap his jaw shut before he could voice it, realizing that the Commander was testing him.

“Yes sir.” He said, no trace of attitude in his voice.

“Good.” The Commander nodded, obviously pleased that Steve had passed the first (Steve assumed the first of many) test.

“I’m going out on a limb here for you Rogers and if you don’t live up to HYDRA’s expectations I will be in just as much trouble as you and the Winter Soldier.” Steve winced at that, the responsibility placed on his shoulders and he promised himself there and then that he wouldn’t let the Commander and the Soldier down. He didn’t want anyone else to get in trouble because of his actions, especially not when they had bet their reputation and career on him because they believed in him. He wanted to protect the Winter Soldier. He wanted to be the best damn agent HYDRA had ever seen. He wanted to change the world for the better. He wanted to make his mother proud. He wanted to prove everyone who called him fragile and lost cause how wrong they were.

“Now, you will need to be punished for disobeying orders, hero or no. I think 120 lashes will be sufficient, don’t you?” Steve took a breath before answering. 120 lashes was a lot, but not as bad as it could have been and he knew it. Besides, he was willing to endure three times that much easy if it meant he came out on the other side as the Winter Soldier’s handler.

“Yes, sir.” He said.

“I will send someone in to administer the punishment. And when you have healed we will discuss your future in HYDRA.” Pierce said, leaving Steve alone in the interrogation-room. Steve wanted to ask about the Soldier but he managed to keep his questions to himself. Commander Pierce wasn’t agent Allard after all, the Soldier wouldn’t be subjected to too a harsh punishment at his hands.

 

 

**Wednesday, 10.15 PM, Brock Rumlow, Location classified, Base 4, Commander Pierce’s office**

“You’re GIVING him the Soldier, sir?” Rumlow all but shouted, his face significantly whiter than before. He’d been expected being yelled at and getting a formidable punish to match the embarrassingly failed mission. He had not expected to feel the need to check for a gas-leak or something else that would explain why the Commander had suddenly become insane.

“Indeed I am.” The Commander said calmly, leaning back in his chair, looking like Brock wasn’t about to have a heart-attack.

“Sir, you can’t-“

“I can and I will.”

“This is a mistake sir.”

“I don’t think it is. You’ve seen how attached he is to the Soldier already.”

“That’s _why_ this is a bad idea. May I remind you Sir, that the two people who got between Rogers and the Soldier are both dead.” Brock knows he’s grasping at straws and potentially risking the Commander thinking he’s the one who is insane for throwing those accusations around again, but he has to do something to convince the Commander that this is indeed a terrible idea. Granted agent Allard isn’t dead just yet, but he will be soon and Brock very much blames that one Rogers, just like he is still convinced that there was mare to Captain Walker’s death than Rogers says there was.

He can clearly see that Pierce isn’t amused by his accusations, and decides on a different approach with his next breath. “Sir. Agent Allard was going to suggest you make me the Soldier’s handler once we came back from the mission…”

“I am well aware of what you and agent Allard have been discussing, agent Rumlow.” The Commander interrupted, effectively reminding Brock that it wasn’t in his best interest to associate himself with agent Allard now, since the man had been found to be a traitor and all. He might have forgotten about that for a few second, and swallowed his words to let the Commander continue.

“This mission was an absolute disaster, an embarrassment to say the least. I’m not giving you the Soldier because you fucked up. I’m seriously questioning your judgement. Did your ambition compromise you agent Rumlow? Were you too busy flexing your muscles for agent Allard to see that he was playing you?” Brock winced at the accusation, fists clenching at his sides because the Commander was right. This whole mess was on him, he should have realized that they were walking into a trap. He’d had his eyes on the wrong prize, the Soldier, instead of focusing solely on the mission like he should have been.

“Rogers won’t stand by and watch you punish the Soldier, he’ll grow to care about him too much for that.” He said after a few seconds, trying to change the subject.

“Ah yes. But I won’t be the one punishing the Soldier.” The Commander said, a sly smile on his lips like he had it all figured out. Brock didn’t like being out of the loop, especially not when it came to Rogers since it seemed that people were underestimating the man left and right. Sure, the man had saved Brock and his team and for that he owed him, but that didn’t mean he was going to follow Steve with blind loyalty. Hell no. Brock had no delusions – Steve had come because he wanted to save the Winter Soldier, there had been no thought for the rest of the team or agent Allard or any of HYDRA’s interests. The Commander was a fool for not seeing it.

“You think he’s going to do it himself because you tell him to? That will backfire, he will just resent you more.”

“I won’t have to tell him. He’s going to do it all on his own.” Brock frowned. Sure, the Commander was a master manipulator and an even better strategist but from what he knew of agent Rogers that wasn’t going to happen.

“The Soldier will always belong to HYDRA, agent Rumlow, and Rogers will come to realize and accept this in time, I assure you. And even if he doesn’t he has no allies and no outside support. Even if he attempted to run away with the Soldier he would have to come crawling back eventually.” Brock still wasn’t convinced, but he could read between the lights. Steve would only be given the illusion of control. The Commander had ways of controlling the Soldier that maybe he was the only one who knew about, and if Steve tried to rebel the Soldier would turn on him.

“It won’t come to that though. I prefer agent Rogers to stay with us of his own violation, I have a feeling he will bring us many victories as the Soldier’s handler. But if he becomes a problem down the road we have always have the chair.” Pierce continued, still smiling that cocky smile like he’s ten steps ahead of his opponents.

“The chair-“ Brock started, confused until it dawned on him what the Commander was implying. “Sir.” He breathed, not quite able to believe it despite the smirk on the Commander’s mouth.

“The technology has been heavily upgrades since the 1940’s and we have access to all of Zola’s research. Making another Soldier will be easy in case Rogers proves himself a liability.”

 

 

**Wednesday, 11.40 PM, Alexander Pierce, Location classified, Base 4, Commander Pierce’s personal rooms**

“All clear, Commander Pierce.” The agent steps out of the apartment, holstering his gun after searching it for any potential threats. As dull as it is having to wait for ten minutes every time you want to get into your apartment the security measures are necessary, especially this close after such a high-level security-breach as the one with agent Allard.

“That will be all.” Pierce tells his guard of three as he enters the apartment, letting them know to wait outside. He protocol at times like these are usually that he should keep two guards with him at all times, but he doesn’t want an audience for his unofficial meeting with the Soldier tonight. That is all his. He’s feeling a bit rebellious – maybe agent Rogers is rubbing off on him.

The door slides shut behind him and he steps further into the small living-space HYDRA has awarded him. It’s big for being in a secret underground-base sure, and way better than most other agents are allowed, but he still hates it. He misses his beach-house in Malibu, the mansion outside of New York and the villa in France he bought last year but has yet to visit – too many things to deal with at base recently to even think about taking a vacation. He starts undoing the cuffs on his suit-jacket with a heavy sigh, feeling work-related stress drain from his mind as he lets his eyes fall on the Soldier.

The Winter Soldier is sitting on a stool in front of the large desk that Alexander works from when he isn’t required in his office. The tactical gear has been replaced by a black wife-beater and pair of lose-fitting shorts, his flesh hand hooked up to an almost empty IV-bag. Pierce folds his suit-jacket and puts it down on the desk, curiously studying the Soldier as he does. The man doesn’t seem to notice he’s being watched, hasn’t moved at all except raising his head a little to acknowledge Pierce’s presence in the room.

Pierce lets his finger trace the plates of the metal arm, cool and hard under his fingers, a magnificent weapon like none other. The red star of the Soviet Union is a testament to the arm’s legacy, to the Soldier’s origin and while Pierce has been tempted to have it replaced with something more fitting for a servant of HYDRA he has yet to do anything about it. And it will be pretty ironic that when the American government gets crushed, the hand doing it will bear the Russian symbol.

He busies his fingers with turning the IV off, pulling the needle out of the Soldier’s arm and pushing the pole it hangs from aside. The Soldier’s eyes tracks him as he goes, but there is no emotion behind it, just the way Pierce likes it.

He bends over a little, looking over the Soldier’s shoulder to watch his back. He had ordered 120 lashes administered to agent Rogers, looking at the Soldier’s back now he realized that that might have been too lenient a punishment. The Soldier had gotten 400 lashes, and most of them looked to be scabbing over already. A few deeper gashes had left damp spots on the black fabric and the skin on the Soldier’s back was swollen and angry red. But that meant come tomorrow night agent Rogers would most likely be fine again, which was a disappointment. Order only comes through pain after all, and Steve Rogers needed a lot more order in his life.

The Soldier doesn’t move a muscle as Pierce reaches over, pushes the wife-beater out of the way a bit and drags a thumb across one of the wounds still open on his right shoulder-blade. His breathing doesn’t change even as Pierce presses down, rubbing the skin and the tear a bit back and forth. He nods to himself and removes his hand, satisfied with the Soldier’s discipline. Agent Allard had been complaining loudly about the Soldier’s lack of that, but as usual the critique was unfounded. Pierce couldn’t say he was disappointed to hear about the French agent’s betrayal, quite the opposite actually.

Pierce himself was too busy to be the Soldier’s handler himself, and field-work had never been where his particular strengths lied. But agent Allard had monopolized the Soldier since he came to the base, threatening to go over Pierce’s head and report his extracurricular activities when Pierce had objected. Revenge was a sweet thing.

Almost as sweet as the inside of the Winter Soldier’s mouth.

But he was getting ahead of himself. Business before pleasure, after all.

“You are getting a new handler.” He said, stepping back a bit because having his groin in proximity to the Soldier was counter-productive right now. The Soldier raised his eyes, not enough to look Pierce in the eye (he’d learned that mistake the hard way) but enough to let him know that he was paying attention.

“Agent Steve Rogers. He has been given the same serum you were given. He is younger than what you’re used to, and pretty untested. But I see a lot of potential in him. You’ve been sparring with him the last few weeks.” Pierce continued, pausing to gauge the Soldier’s reaction.

“Agent Rogers.” The Soldier said after a few moments of silence, like he was trying it out. Pierce nodded.

“What do you think of him?” Pierce pressed, curious to hear the Soldier’s answer. Independent thinking outside of tactical and strategic planning was strictly forbidden from the Soldier, but the way the man had been behaving off the plane earlier that day suggested that his programming might need to be recalibrated.

The Soldier didn’t answer the question though, looking at the Commander like he hadn’t heard him. It was a good sign, the way the Soldier was supposed to react to a question he isn’t supposed to consider or anything really that isn’t a direct order.

“Threat assessment, agent Rogers.” Pierce says instead, rephrasing the question in a way that will allow the Soldier to answer.

“Agent Rogers, threat level 7. Enhanced strength and speed. Death-count unknown, at least 3 SHIELD-agents, 18 HYDRA operatives. Easily distracted in close-combat, lacks knowledge of advanced techniques, intense fighting-style. Stubborn.” The last comment made Pierce raise an eyebrow, he didn’t think he’d ever heard the Soldier refer to anyone as stubborn during a threat-assessment before but it wasn’t like it was untrue. It was just an odd observation to make.

“You will do as he commands at all times.” Pierce ordered, making sure that the Soldier was still paying full attention to him with a sharp glare. “But I’m also going to need you to command him.”

The Soldier looked up in confusion at that, enough so that he almost met Pierce’s eyes before catching himself and quickly averting his eyes again. Pierce grabbed a fistful of brown hair, reminding the Soldier that he didn’t tolerate those kinds of reactions. The Soldier was a tool, a weapon, a beautiful piece of machinery and those didn’t display emotions left and right. He held his grip until his knuckles started going white before releasing it, fixating the Soldier with a hard look.

“As I was saying. You will command Agent Rogers as well.” He repeated. “Agent Rogers will most likely refuse to correct you when you make mistakes. And you cannot go unchecked, can you?”

“No, sir.” The Soldier answered immediately.

“Good. Agent Rogers doesn’t understand that though, so it will be up to you to tell him.”

“Yes, sir.” The Soldier agreed, nodding sharply.

“He won’t want to cause you pain, but we all know that you can handle pain, can’t you, Soldier?”

“Yes, sir.” No hesitation, good.

“Order only comes from pain. And we both know what happens when you are out of line, don’t we?”

“Terrible things.” The Soldier is quick to answer, voice not quite quivering in fear but almost, as he responds to the conditioning the Soviets drilled into him.

“That’s right. So if he won’t discipline you, you have to make him.” Pierce clarifies, making sure that there is no confusion in what the Soldier’s orders are.

“Yes, sir.”

“And he is not to know I ordered you to do that. Nor is he to be told about out meetings. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah, perfect.” Pierce said, stepping into the Soldier’s space again. “Now, on your knees Soldier.”

The Soldier comes off the stool with practiced graze, sinking to his knees between Pierce and the desk in one fluid motion. His hands are already folded at his back when Pierce pulls himself out of his pants, obedient as ever. They’ve done this enough that he doesn’t even have to tell the Soldier to lick his lips, get them shiny and soft so he can lean in and rub the head of his cock along them.

He pushes in faster than he usually does, obviously catching the Soldier by surprise as he pushes in as far as he can go way immediately. He groans at the feeling as the Soldier tries to suppress his gag-reflex, tries to relax his throat to let him in. Pierce ruts against the fluttering muscles for a little while, enjoying the feel of it before pulling out, leaving just the head inside the Soldier’s mouth to let him adjust to the speedup process. Their usual pattern involves Pierce feeding the Soldier his cock gradually for several minutes, teasing himself by taking it slow, but having the Soldier walk the corridors all tempting without being able to take him because of agent Allard has frustrated him immensely.

“There you go, sweet thing.” Pierce mutters, as the Soldier falls into their usual rhythm, sucking at the head in his mouth. “Yeah, suck on it, go on.”

It’s a rush of power like nothing else, having the Soldier’s mouth on him, in his knees in front of him. The man who has shaped the centuries, singlehandedly started and ended wars, stronger and faster and better than anyone alive but completely at his mercy. Pierce was a young man the first time he dared get his cock inside the Soldier, a rising agent with the organization and he remembers that being the exact moment when he fully signed on to HYDRA’s philosophy. He had come stuttering ‘Hail Hydra’, after knowing what true control and discipline felt and looked like. No partner he’d ever had since then had been quite as good as the Soldier, and Pierce had quickly given up the search for anyone who could match the Asset.

His hand came up to tangle in the Soldier’s hair, using it to guide the Soldier back and forth over his dick. The Soldier took the que perfectly, muscles relaxing until he was limp as a doll, no movement other than what Pierce directed.

Thoughts of how he was going to spin the events of the last few days started slipping into the front of his mind after a while, and he stepped up his tempo, thrusting harder into the Soldier’s mouth, chasing his pleasure to push thoughts of work to the sidelines. He would spin things just right and maybe earn himself a promotion in a not too distant future. Getting a lot of information out of the traitor would make his chances even better and tomorrow he would get to the task of extracting said information, but now wasn’t the time he wanted to be distracted with such thoughts dammit.

The Soldier made the smallest gagging noises around his cock as he pressed the man’s face to his groin, hips pumping. The sound annoyed him, made him dig his fingernails into the Soldier’s scalp to remind him of his mission-parameters. If the uncoordinated and sloppy sounds of someone failing to control their body was a turn-on for him Pierce would go someone else, pay a whore to take his cock until she vomited on the motel-carpet. That was the exact opposite of what he wanted though.

A sharp slap to the Soldier’s face reminded him to check himself as Pierce pulled out a little, using his hand to angle the Soldier’s face a little better so he could fuck down into his throat, long languid thrusts as he reveled in the feeling. Fuck agent Allard and those who thought they were above using the Soldier as more than a weapon – they were sorely missing out.

“Don’t make a mess.” He warned as he picked up the pace, pent-up tension bringing him to the edge fast. He grabbed the Soldier’s head with both hands to hold it steady as he thrusted, not because he needed to – he knew that the Soldier would keep absolutely still even without being restrained because he was wonderful like that, but because he liked feeling the man in his hands. One hand trailed down to the metal arm, over the shoulder and onto the red star just as he was about to come, the cool metal under his palm just the thing to set him off.

The Soldier waited dutifully while Pierce rocked into his mouth while he unloaded, fucking himself through his orgasm until he was limp and just resting on the Soldier’s tongue. His hand was still on the Soldier’s shoulder, a sharp reminder of who was in front of him, the feel of metal a direct link to his adrenaline these days. The rest of the world could say and to whatever the fuck they wanted, and he could be forced to bow his head to any number of people above him on the ladder and in the end it wouldn’t matter because he had one thing they didn’t. The Winter Soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos feeds my muse! And she is always hungry ;)


	11. the Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adding an extra warning for explicit descriptions of torture! Like, it's not pretty.

 

 

**Friday, 01.00 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the gallery to interrogation-room B**

“I thought HYDRA doesn’t negotiate.” Steve says dryly, repeating the words Commander Pierce had felt so strongly about less than three days ago. He wasn’t supposed to talk back or question orders, he knew he was on probation, but it was like Pierce was trying to goad him into refusing by making completely unreasonable requests.

“Agent Rogers, I’m sure there are some people who find your sass cute. Do not mistake me for one of them.” The Commander said, looking extremely unimpressed with Steve’s argument. “The traitor is quite resistant to our persuasive methods and the longer we wait for him to break the bigger chances are of other traitors getting away.”

“So you think there are more of them?” Steve intersects.

“Allard has hinted that much, yes.” The Commander confirmed, face tight like he was trying not to show how much that stressed him out. “He has agreed to divulge this information freely on the condition that he gets to see the Soldier one last time.”

“Take a picture and show it to him.” Steve said coldly. Just the thought of letting the Winter Soldier anywhere near his former handler now that Steve knew exactly how the man had treated the Solider made his stomach turn.

An agent gave a short laugh at Steve’s comment from where he was standing in the corner of the room, washing his hands out in an industrial sink. Blood was coloring the water red and the man’s black t-shirt had darker patches here and there, presumably also blood. It was the same man who had been delivering the punishment for Steve’s own disobedience the other day, and though he made Steve’s skin crawl at least he knew that it meant HYDRA hadn’t gone easy on Allard. The gashes on his back had healed up quickly, only an ache in his muscles and pink scar-tissue that pulled a little if he extended his arms left now. But he’d be lying if he’d said that getting them hadn’t hurt. The agent had a sadistic streak, no doubt about – Steve had felt him aiming the whip to fall on the already broken patches of skin to cause the most pain and in the moment he’d been silently cursing the man. Now that he knew that Allard had been on the receiving end of that attention as well the memory didn’t hurt nearly as much.

“The Soldier is going in there, Agent Rogers. With or without you. I had you informed as a curtesy.” The Commander said, ignoring the man’s reaction and once again reminding Steve that he wasn’t the one in charge here. Steve gritted his teeth and turned to look at the Soldier, standing at attention behind him and the Commander, like he wasn’t quite sure who he should be looking to for orders.

“Fine, but if we’re doing this we’re doing it my way.” Steve insisted as he took a seat at the small table in the room. Pierce wanted him to handle the Soldier he’d handle him, but he wasn’t going to accept any backseat-driving. Captain Walker and agent Allard hadn’t.

Pierce raised an eyebrow at Steve’s condition but he looked more amused than irritated now. “As long as you get us the information by the end of the day.” He said, and Steve didn’t fail to notice that making a demand had made the Commander add on conditions. When he was first presented with the plan it had been with the directive of supervising from a corner while the prisoner did whatever it was he wanted with the Soldier and take notes on the information. The time-limit and expectations of results had been tacked on when he took the rains. A consequence to his hesitance no doubt.

The Commander made his way around the table to sit opposite Steve, and the Soldier moved when the Commander did. He seemed a bit hesitant though, his eyes darting form the Commander to Steve in a decidedly nervous way. The Commander gave a short nod in Steve’s direction and the Soldier turned, coming up to stand behind Steve’s left shoulder.

“I told you Agent Rogers is your new handler now, didn’t I?” The Commander asked the Soldier, voice surprisingly calm. Steve had grown used to expecting people to yell and get furious at the Soldier for the smallest imagined slight. The Commander seemed to handle him a different way, and Steve was glad to see that maybe he wasn’t the only one who didn’t treat the Soldier terribly.

“Yes, sir.” The Soldier answered instantly and Steve shifted a bit in his chair. He knew it was custom for the handlers to keep the Soldier at their backs, everyone seemed to do it including the Commander. But he didn’t like not being able to watch the Soldier’s expressions, he wanted him in his line of sight. And he didn’t like how it obviously put the Soldier in a position of compliance and obedience, allowing people to easily talk over him and treat him more like a thing than a person, just a weapon in standing in the background.

“We haven’t programmed him to know you has his handler yet. We will get to that, but until we do he might be a bit confused as to who is in charge.” The Commander explained, and Steve nodded in answer. Talking about the Soldier’s programming made him feel uneasy and he needs to focus on one thing at the time.

“What do we know about the traitors?” He asks, changing the subject and hoping that the Commander doesn’t notice why.

“How much do you know about Johann Schmidt, agent Rogers?” The Commander asks, catching Steve by surprise. He had no idea that this would all be connected to HYDRA’s history.

“The Red Skull from the second world war?” He asked, to make sure they were indeed talking about that Schmidt.

Commander Pierce nodded.

Steve frowned, recalling the facts from history-lessons in school. “He was the first person to receive Dr. Erskine’s serum. He led HYDRA during the war until he was stopped by agent Carter and her squad. He was going to blow up New York before agent Carter crashed the plane with the bombs on in the arctic.”

“Yes, that is all well and good. But there is one thing that most people doesn’t know. Schmidt found something, an energy-source if you will call it that, which he used to develop unmatched weapons. It was lost during the war, but we found it again. At the same time we found the serum given to you actually. With this object we will be able to bring freedom to the world, but there are people who are convinced that it doesn’t belong to us. They have it in their heads that it’s been stolen from the Norse gods, and that they will come looking for it and destroy earth as they do. Which of course is ridiculous, but they are willing to lose their lives over the theory.”

“So that’s what agent Allard and the others wanted to trade for the hostages?” Steve quickly connected the dots.

“Yes. They want to give it back to the gods and believes that the gods will be forever grateful for the gift. They are all diluted really.”

“What about the Red Skull?” Steve asked.

“Oh he had nothing to do with the traitors we are dealing with today. The Red Skull believed himself to be a god, he wouldn’t have bowed to the idea of other celestials.” The Commander said, waving his hand dismissingly. “HYDRA has a dark past as you know agent Rogers, allying with the Nazis was a terrible decision. But we are well on our way to correcting those mistakes and making the world so much better for everyone. And it all hinges on this device so we can’t risk anyone running around looking to steal it.”

Steve nodded. He was curious to ask about this mysterious artifact that was so important, but he assumed he’d be hit with the ‘classified’-answer and he didn’t want the Commander to think he was getting too curious since it seemed like a sensitive subject. So he let it go for the moment, deciding to pick his battles.

“I’ll make him talk.” Steve said, turning in his chair to make sure the Soldier wasn’t in the way before he pushed out of it and stood. The Soldier’s expression had gone back to a blank stare into nothing, awaiting orders or a mission and Steve had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like a lot of the things he’d be privy to as the Soldier’s handler. Many of the details surrounding the Soldier’s training and programming were fuzzy and not something that people knew or talked about. They talked about obedience and ruthlessness and strength and precision, never about the man’s motives for fighting for HYDRA or how his loyalties worked.

“By all means.” The Commander said, motioning to the door into the interrogation room with his hand. The way he settled back into his chair made it seem like the fitting thing would be to give the man some popcorn so that he could enjoy the show, but Steve didn’t doubt that the stakes were much higher than Pierce being amused by the rookie’s attempts at torture. Just like most other things this was surely a test.

 

 

**Friday, 01.40 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, Interrogation room B**

“Pierce _must_ be joking.” Agent, or well, former agent, Allard didn’t bother hiding his distain as Steve stepped into the interrogation-room. Steve didn’t mind though – the French could have any objections he wanted but his opinion didn’t matter anymore and the attitude would make it even more satisfying when Steve turned his words into screams.

It wasn’t like he’d gone into HYDRA hoping that he’d get to torture anyone. He preferred fighting clean fights on the battlefield, missions where his targets had a chance at fighting back and weren’t subjected to hours of stomach-turning torture. But sometimes alternative methods were needed and could even reduce the number of casualties in the long run. And besides, anyone getting in the way of HYDRA knew what they were signing up for, so anyone who found themselves in their interrogation rooms had really been asking to be put there. That said though, there wasn’t a single part of him that felt bad as he took in the sight of the traitor in front of him.

The man’s right eye was almost swollen shut, blood from a most likely broken nose had stained the entire front of his shirt. Looking down Steve saw that the agent’s hands had been wrapped up in tight bandages, the left one starting to leak through with blood at a spot in his palm. Bandaging up prisoners wasn’t exactly standard practice but Steve figured that they’d want to keep Allard alive long enough to spill his secrets before blood-loss killed him.

“The Soldier is here. Start talking.” Steve said, ignoring the jab and making sure to sound as commanding as possible as he stared the Soldier’s former handler down.

Allard managed to glare at Steve even through his swollen eye, gearing up for a fight no doubt. “Leave us.” The man commanded, like he was in a position to make demands. Maybe he still thought he was – he had leverage and HYDRA were obviously willing to negotiate for, seeing as they’d sent him the Soldier like he’d asked. Most other agents would probably have conceded, left the room or at least stepped into a corner to supervise as the prisoner did whatever he wanted with his last wish.

“No. You wanted him here, he’s here. Now you talk.” Steve stated simply, not bothering to hide the fact that he was pleased with the role-reversal. Enjoying seeing anyone, being in pain wasn’t usually his style but he’d seen the evidence of how the agent treated the Soldier, and that was just a few hours of a few days. Agent Allard had been the Soldier’s handler for four _years_.

“Those were not the conditions.” Steve wasn’t surprised by the protest. No doubt Allard wanted to be left alone with the Soldier, maybe work out some anger and frustration about his defeat on the Soldier’s skin before he gave in and talked. Get a rush from beating on someone who couldn’t defend themselves to soothe his own feelings of helplessness, a classic bully-move taken right from the schoolyard that had Steve grit his teeth.

“I never agreed to any terms – taking it up with Pierce if you have any complaints. Oh wait, you lost the privilege to complain when you decided to turn your back on your team and betray HYDRA.” Steve might have sounded a bit smug. Three agents on the team had died in the initial struggle when they’d been captured, and they had died for nothing, betrayed by their leader and led into a trap. That kind of thing alone made Allard deserving of everything he got.

Allard narrowed his eyes in anger at Steve’s defiance and Steve would have felt bad about going back on a deal but like he’d said – _he_ hadn’t promised Allard anything. Whatever deal he thought he had he had made with the Commander, and the Commander didn’t seem bothered by going back on his word. Steve didn’t fail to notice that detail about Commander Pierce’s behavior – it made him a bit wary of his superior when the man was so quick to dismiss a promise he’d made and he made sure to file the knowledge away for later.

“I want-“ The traitor started, but Steve cut him off. He couldn’t stand listening to the man more than he had to, the sound of his voice making the surveillance-tapes pop up in his head repeatedly.

“What you want is irrelevant. You don’t give the orders anymore. Not to me, not to anyone.” Steve deliberately turned around to look pointedly at the Soldier to show that he was serious about that. No way he was letting Allard do anything to the Soldier just so that they could get some intel Steve was certain he could get another way. The Soldier met his eyes after a few seconds, like it took him time to realize that Steve was talking to him, including him in those who were safe from Allard’s orders and abuse. Once he caught on Steve saw the Soldier’s eyes widen marginally, his gaze intense and not betraying any other emotion, but it was enough that Steve knew he’d gotten through that initial wall that kept the Soldier’s personality from interfering with his missions and orders.

Allard said a few choice words in French that Steve wasn’t familiar with but he didn’t doubt that they were curses. He ignored the man to walk to the far end of the room, equipped with an array of weapons and torture supplies. Some of the things stocked on the shelf looked like something come straight out of the medieval times, others were guns and knives and a few could definitely be found in a mechanics garage. He forewent the creative and extravagant options though, scanning the shelves to find what he needed.

The agent scoffed, obviously not intimidated by Steve of all people and Steve couldn’t really fault him for it. As far as agent Allard knew all Steve had were a bunch of muscle he didn’t know how to use against the Winter Soldier in a fight and bleeding heart. Until now Allard had managed to hold out against HYDRA’s most determined persuasive methods, strained against enough torture that Commander Pierce thought it would be more profitable to negotiate rather than continue breaking him. The man could obviously handle pain, wasn’t scared of blood and determined to go down on his own conditions. But Steve knew people like Allard, bullies who used their power to punch down because it made them feel better about themselves. They could handle pain, they were often used to pain, but the thing that really got to them was terror and fear.

“Lay a finger on me and I will take my secrets with me to my grave.” Allard threatened, voice sure like he still thought he was in charge. He spoke like someone who had the upper hand, like he knew that whatever Steve did he wouldn’t break. It was smug and condescending and Steve didn’t hide the smile tugging on the corners of his lips when he turned back to the traitor to play his cards.

“I have a theory.” Steve started, ignoring the man’s threat like he hadn’t been listening. “That the way people like you chose to tear their victims down says more about them than it does about their victims.” He said, turning to the man still hovering just inside the door of the room. “Soldier. Are you afraid of water? Of drowning?” He asked.

The man gave the question a second’s consideration before silently shaking his head in a decisive way, his answer solidifying Steve’s theory.

“That’s what I thought. Out of all the ways you could torture someone, mock drowning is pretty specific. I think that the reason you chose that method to terrorize the Soldier with is because it’s the kind of torture that frightens _you_ the most.” Steve said, raising an eyebrow and turning back to the prisoner. The color drained from the man’s face so quickly it probably made him lightheaded when he realized what Steve was threatening to do, fear and confusion apparent behind the blood drying on his face.         

“You-“ The agent started, still trying to argue with Steve and probably assert his dominance or whatever, but there was a note of desperation to his words now.

“I’ll give you one chance to tell me everything you know right now. If you don’t, you’ll drown until my arms get tired. Then I’ll give you another chance, and if you still don’t take it I’ll keep it up for however long your body can last and if you change your mind I won’t even hear you out.” He said, explaining his plan to the prisoner. Allard had managed to school his expression into something more controlled now, but there was no doubt that he was really scared. Good.

The response came in a string of French that Steve didn’t even bother trying to translate to himself.

Once he collected the things he needed he looked up at the Solider as he walked back to the prisoner. He was surprised and caught off guard to catch the Solider looking right at him, those deep eyes watching him carefully. The man hadn’t been wearing his mask for the day and it allowed Steve to see even more of the man’s expression. When the Solider realized Steve was looking at him his lips turned up at one corner, just the tiniest bit, and a conspiratorial glint appeared in the man’s eyes. Steve felt almost like the Soldier was trying to show his approval of his plan, and for a moment his brain went to a weird place. He wondered what it would be like to swing his arm over the Soldier’s shoulders and get that same look of backing and appreciation as they set out to do something risky and adrenalin-inducing together.

He pulled himself together and forced the imagery out of his head. He needed to spend more time off the base, with actual people doing actual social activities. Getting beaten up by a practically mute weaponized super-soldier did not count as a social activity, even though it was pretty much the only social interaction he looked forward to.

The Soldier, to Steve’s surprise but also relief, gave him subtle points on his setup. He was by no means an expert on water boarding (not that he _wanted_ to be either) and while he knew how to execute it in broad strokes he didn’t have a clue about the finer details that made all the difference. He’d been planning to wing it, try a few things out and see what got a result but the Soldier saved him the fumbling. Steve was also pretty sure he managed to communicate without the Commander picking up on it, angling his Kevlar-clad body away from the gallery just discreetly enough that it didn’t look deliberate. He made a small hand movement to indicate that Steve should tilt the chair back more, brought his chin up a little to suggest he do the same thing to the traitor and supervised the amount of water he poured.

The teamwork felt good, and concentrating on the Soldier meant he could mostly shut out the terrible gargling and choking sounds agent Allard made next to him. The agent deserved every single minute of suffering, he hadn’t even shown a bit of remorse or sympathy when he’d done this for fun to the Solider, and focusing on the Soldier made it way easier to not only repeat that to himself but to actually feel the truth of it. Steve was honestly surprised at how well he and the Soldier seemed to understand each other with small gestures and body language, and he couldn’t wait to test out how they would work together in the field, for real.

He didn’t keep track of how many times he tipped the chair back and forth, stepping out of the way as the agent in the chair gagged and spit water as he came up for air that must burn his lungs. He’d promised that he’d keep at it until his arms were tired, so that was the goal he was working toward. He didn’t want to risk letting up too soon, since he’d only promised one last chance and he really didn’t want to blow this whole thing.

The Soldier was watching from the sidelines, no commentary now that Steve had gotten the hang of it, but as Steve moved to tip the chair back on all four again he was surprised when a hand was suddenly placed on the arm holding back the chair. He looked up to see that the Soldier had come even closer, his flesh hand resting on Steve’s forearm, just a little bit of pressure to keep it from letting Allard up. It wasn’t anything Steve couldn’t have shook of if he had wanted to, and Steve saw hesitance in the Soldier’s profile. Like the Soldier was unsure if his advice would be appreciated, and would be quick to backtrack if Steve just pushed back against the hand a little bit. Steve didn’t though, he just returned the chair to its angle and raised the bucket of water again. If anyone was an expert at water boarding it was the Soldier after all. Steve shifted his concentration from the traitor to watch the Soldier. There was a ruthlessness to the way he stood, watching his former handler choking with an intense focus. Steve had been wanting to hear the agent scream within hours of meeting him, but even he felt moderate sympathy for the man somewhere deep down in his gut. The gurgling, choking sounds made his skin crawl and he kept himself at as much distance as he could while still administering the torture effectively. The Soldier looked like it was just another Tuesday, like a man wasn’t being treated to his worst nightmare two feet from him. But at the same time there was no maliciousness to the Soldier’s expression either, like one might have expected. Just sharp focus and dedication to execute the mission as effectively as possible.

Then the hand lifted from Steve’s arm and Steve immediately recognized it as a signal for him to let the man up, tipping the chair forward so fast he had to hold on to it for a second before it tipped over the other way. He let the drenched cloth of fabric drop to the floor and stepped out of the spray of water which Allard desperately coughed up as he strained to breathe.

Steve was about to start counting to ten before letting going another round, but the Soldier caught his attention from the corner of his eye. The shake of the man’s head was so small that Steve would have missed it if it wasn’t for that part in the back of his mind that had decided its only job in this world was to pay attention to the Winter Solider. He kind of wanted to tip the chair back again, go a few more rounds because he doubted that the agent had ever let up on the Soldier just because the man was sufficiently subdued. But he decided to trust the Soldier’s experience when it came to torture and interrogation and picked the fabric up from the ground, twisting it in his hands and wringing some of the water out in the prisoner’s lap as he stepped in front of him.

“We can keep this up, I’ve got all the time in the world, and you can die like this. Or you can tell me what you know and I’ll kill you quickly.” Steve started, speaking slowly and making sure that he got through to the agent as he still struggled to breathe. There was a part of him that hoped that Allard would refuse, spit in Steve’s face and choose to go down the hard way. But the larger part of him hoped that he’d see reason, both because HYDRA was vulnerable without the information he had and also because if Steve failed he and the Soldier would suffer the consequences.

“How.” Allard started, stopping to cough at the end of the world, looking like he was about to throw up from talking, but he’d done plenty of that already and Steve doubted he had anything left to vomit, so his shoes were probably safe despite the proximity. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?” He managed after a few seconds for a breather.

“You don’t.” Steve said plainly. “But I’m no traitor, unlike you. So out of the two of us, I’m pretty sure I’m the most trustworthy.”

Allard _almost_ managed a glare at him for that, and Steve saw defiance set in the man’s jaw at the insult, realizing that he’d fucked it up. He took a breath, scrambling for something to say that would convince the former agent to be reasonable, but before he could, the Soldier suddenly stepped into their space. He grabbed his former handler by the hair, yanking his body back and managing to angle the chair perfectly steady despite only holding the man’s hair. There wasn’t an abundance of hair and his scalp was sure to bruise from the way the silvery fingers of the Soldier’s metal hand dug into it, and the man’s eyes started to water. The Soldier didn’t give the man a second to consider or brace himself before reaching the bucket of water on the floor with his other hand, making the water splash loudly with the threat of the uncomfortable death he was about to face.

It took the agent 0.8 seconds to start screaming, a desperate sound that resonated deep in Steve’s bones. The Soldier kept his grip on the man’s hair, but he didn’t move a muscle other than his head, looking to Steve for orders on how to proceed. Steve stared for a few long seconds, no doubt catching flies but too overwhelmed to care. The Soldier made an equally terrifying and hypnotizing picture, balancing the chair and the man on it with precision and there was this deadly calm to him as he waited for Steve’s word. It should not make Steve’s fingers itch for a pen and paper so he could try and capture the expression in those dark eyes. It really shouldn’t.

Finally getting a grip on himself Steve nodded shortly and the Soldier let the chair back onto its four legs, but the grip on the man’s hair remained. A reminder in case he got braver again, no doubt.

The man gave up the names of seven agents, a professor in Norse mythology in Europe and a man in the tech-department in France as co-conspirators before saying that that was all he had. Steve wasn’t sure if he had more information and was holding out on spite, not really sure how to read the man. He was a soldier, a warrior, not a spy or an interrogator and sure he’d been taught some techniques to see if a person was lying or not but Allard had managed to fool the entirety of HYDRA for years, he was obviously better than that.

But the Soldier seemed to read Steve’s mind and see his hesitation, and reached around his back and pulled out a large knife from somewhere (Steve had no idea that he was armed, he was actually pretty certain that the Soldier wasn’t allowed to be armed at the base at all but that wasn’t really the biggest concern right now) and handed it to him. When Steve met the man’s eyes he recognized the look in there that he’d seen in the desert, the certain determination just before he shot out the tires of the SHIELD-caravan. Steve had been suspicious about something being up, but the Soldier had known and his shots had definitely given them an edge before the enemy could come too close to do any damage to them.

So he didn’t hesitate at all when he took the knife, gripping the handle as if was extended to him and slashing the agent’s throat with a clean, deep cut while the Soldier still held the man’s head in a metal-grip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait everyone! But this chapter was a bitch to write, I hated it soo much haha. Like, I was ready to quit but I couldn't since I've got so many good stuff planned. So this is what it is, sorry it is so short! The next chapter will be better though with some real bonding-time for the supersoldiers.
> 
> Also - I don’t believe that any form of torture is a method that should be used for interrogations and I’m not trying to say that water boarding is effective or anything like that. But HYDRA are a bunch of bad guys, and bad guys still believe in torture because they are stupid. And bad. Just saying, water boarding = bad.
> 
> Ugh, like really, don't judge this chapter. I just needed to get it out of the way so I could keep writing.


	12. the Chair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long wait. My computer is currently ruining my life by not working half the time I need it.

 

**Friday, 04.30 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, Inner sanctum**

After quickly writing a report on what agent Allard had revealed, Steve and the Soldier were directed to follow the Commander. The Soldier’s guards were waiting outside the interrogation room and joined up with them, as well as the additional security Pierce still kept attached to his detail since the attempt at mutiny.

“It is unusual for the Soldier to be out of cry-stasis for longer periods of time.” The Commander explained as they headed down a hallway. Steve nodded, he knew as much. The Soldier was almost never seen at base before, only brought out to go in his missions and then went back on ice right after debriefing. “It messes with the programming and his body, and it’s dangerous and painful for him to be awake for too long.”

“Painful?” Steve kicked himself for showing just how much the thought of that disturbed him in front of the Commander. To care was a weakness within HYDRA. The only thing that should matter was the end-game. But the Commander didn’t call Steve out on his interruption, only making a mhm-sound before clarifying.

“The Soldier’s body has started to wear down over the years. The serum prolongs your lives but it doesn’t give you eternity. His starts to break down if he is off the ice for too long, that’s why we only send him on the most important missions. He suffers terrible headaches as the cells in his brain starts to deteriorate, his muscles breaks down and his nerves goes into overdrive so that the smallest thing causes him tremendous pain.” Steve hated how entirely unbothered by this the Commander sounded. It was clear in his voice that they only put the Soldier on ice because such things would get in the way of missions and make him unstable, not for the man’s own comfort.

“You will go on two more missions before we need to put him back.” The Commander said, as if he was reading Steve’s mind because the next thing he was about to ask was how long he and the Soldier would have.

“Yes sir.” He said, glad to get at least that much time.

“The next thing you need to know is how the wiping-process and programming works.” The Commander continued as they stepped into an elevator which Steve never knew existed before.

“The Soldier’s memory is wiped after each mission. It is both a precaution and a kindness. We erase all mission details from his memory so that he won’t be useful to our enemies, should they capture him. He can’t give any information since he doesn’t have it. And killing is a nasty business. By removing the memories of what he has done we spare him any unnecessary trauma.”

Steve frowned at that, it didn’t quite match up. He remembered how the agents had been indicating to something that happened on a mission in Bulgaria, which the Soldier supposedly didn’t remember. That made sense, but then he had clearly remembered agent Allard as his handler when the French man had showed up in the gym.

“Does he forget everything?” Steve asked carefully, not wanting to accidentally give anything away that the Soldier wouldn’t want the Commander to know. Agent Allard had obviously been pleased that the fear he’d instilled in the Soldier was remembered, but maybe that had been a glitch in the man’s programming? Maybe he wasn’t supposed to have remembered anything about his old handler.

“Some handlers believe that establishing a personal connection to the Soldier makes him more effective in the field. The technicians can program around some memories and choose what he keeps and what he doesn’t. Captain Walker preferred a full wipe to limit the scope of the Soldier’s ability to feel as much as possible. Other handlers don’t want to have to repeat their disciplinary lessons before each missions to ensure that the Soldier respects them. I assume you will want the Soldier to remember you, agent Rogers?”

Steve bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. He couldn’t afford to be so obvious about his attachment to the Soldier.

“I think it would be most efficient. The Soldier already knows how I fight and what I need to improve. Erasing that would force us to waste time having him re-learn that.” As for excuses made up on the spot it was a pretty good one. HYDRA was all about efficiency.

“Don’t worry, agent Rogers. I quite prefer the Soldier to remember me as well.” The Commander said, giving Steve a conspirator wink like they were in on the same secret. It made Steve’s skin crawl and he felt dirty all over. Whatever secrets Pierce had Steve didn’t want to be involved.

“But you won’t be sparring with the Soldier anymore.”

“Sir?”

“As the Soldier’s handler you dynamic must be absolutely clear. He might not respect your authority if he regularly beats you in combat. And it is a very bad idea to encourage the Soldier to be violent toward his handlers. You are not the first one to be tempted to better themselves by having the Soldier train you, but those experiments have all ended badly. The Soldier needs discipline and a clear chain of command or his programming is more likely to fail and trust me, you do not want to be anywhere near him if that happens.” Of course Steve didn’t say that he had indeed been present during one of those instances.

That certainly felt like one step forward and fifteen steps backward. Sure, Steve had been hoping to be made the Soldier’s handler and he was glad that no one else had gotten the promotion. Just thinking about how Rumlow or some of the other agents on the base might handle the Soldier’s _disciplinary lessons_ made Steve’s skin crawl. But he hadn’t expected that he’d be forced to stop sparring with the Soldier. Not only had those sessions already made him a sharper fighter but until agent Allard had butted in and taken some of the fun out of the exercise it had been Steve’s favorite activity. He’d been looking forward to getting back to sparring with the Soldier with almost embarrassing enthusiasm.

He could tell that there was no changing the Commander’s mind on this issue though, and kept quiet to not anger the man by arguing.

The destination turned out to be a large room at the end of a long corridor divided up into several segments which all had individual locking systems. The room was located on a sublevel Steve never knew existed on the base, and he’d been living there for years. He looked on closely as the Commander entered long and complicated codes to pass into each segment, memorizing them carefully.

The Soldier had tensed up behind him as soon as they’d stepped into a hidden elevator Steve also never knew existed before now, and looking around the room they arrived at Steve could kind of see why. A huge, complicated metal construction surrounded a chair in the middle of the room. The construction was hooked up to several monitors and computer screens and Steve’s brain struggled to decide if it felt like he was in a shady bunker-hospital or a garage for transformer-robots.

“The wiping-process might seem a bit brutal at first. But it is necessary.” The Commander said, his tone comforting and friendly on the surface but there was enough steel in his posture that Steve got the message loud and clear. Don’t interfere.

The Soldier moved, seemingly without having to be prompted, walking up to the chair with about as much expression on his face as someone who was sleepwalking. There was a slight hesitance in his step though, his shoulders tense and when he sat down the fingers on his metal hand gripped the chair’s armrests hard enough it was a wonder the thing didn’t come clean off under the pressure. Even from a distance Steve could see the Soldier’s jaw clenching hard enough that it had to be painful, and as he settled in the chair his body grew even more rigid. If he decided to, the Soldier would be out of the chair before Steve could blink, no doubt about it. He had never seen the Soldier this ready for a fight before. After a few seconds he realized that the chair had probably been reinforced to account for super strength, and that it wasn’t as much preparing for a fight Steve saw in the Soldier’s expression. He was steeling himself for pain, for a battle with his own body, for something he couldn’t fight. Steve swallowed hard, and managed not to jump as the steel-contraption around the chair suddenly came to life.

Monitors and brightly colored lamps and buttons flared up and parts of the metal started to move. The room filled with the sound of buzzing electricity and shifting metal plates until parts of the construction detached from the rest of it, a circle coming out to hover just above the Soldier’s head. Cuffs emerged from the armrests of the chair, circling the Soldier’s arms and locking him in place. Almost the entirety of the Soldier’s lower and upper arms were covered in the restraints and Steve swallowed hard as he watched the Soldier’s chest falling and rising a bit faster than it had before.

A woman wearing a white dress-shirt and black pants joined them in the room, heading straight for the stool next to the chair the Soldier was seated in. She started using the computer that seemed to control the monitors, completely uninterested in Pierce and Steve and even the Solider.

“Partial mission-wipe and a full re-set.” Pierce told her in a clinical voice and the woman quickly looked back at them, seeming to notice Steve for the first time. A second later she nodded and went back to studying her computer. Steve assumed that she was what Pierce had referred to as a technician. She worked on the computer for a few minutes and since Pierce didn’t seem inclined to provide further instruction or explanations Steve let himself focus on the Soldier.

The man in the chair was still breathing heavy, his pulse most likely elevated and Steve itched to go over and try and comfort him.

Then the woman reached over to her side and came back with a mouth-guard, a large black piece of plastic that was bound to make anyone gag. As she leaned over to the Soldier and the man opened his mouth the metal above his head started sparking electricity. It took Steve a second to realize what he was about to witness, but when he did there was no stopping the cry escaping him.

“No!” He protested loudly, taking several steps toward the Soldier. He gave the technician a warning look, relaying that he wasn’t above hurting a woman if she didn’t stand down, and turned around to stare at the Commander. There was no way he was letting them treat the Soldier with some kind of electric-shock therapy, especially when the man was wide awake and would feel his brain as it was fried. The metal construction looked even more daunting close up. The two panels sparking with electricity, one on each side of the Soldier’s head, was equipped with large sharp spikes that Steve didn’t need to use much imagination to understand where they were going to go.

The look on the Commander’s face surprised Steve though. He looked almost bored, like he’d been expecting Steve’s reaction but was hoping that he wouldn’t be so predictable. Whatever, this was where Steve drew the line.

“No mouth-guard then?” Pierce said, stunning Steve with his clearly intentional misinterpretation of his protest. The Commander shrugged and shook his head at the technician who was still holding the piece of plastic and she leaned back to take it away from the Soldier.

“There is always the risk that he will crush his jaw once the procedure starts. He could choke on his own blood if he bites too hard. Swallow his tongue even.” Pierce said, before Steve could collect himself enough to form words. He recited the terrible risks like he was reading something uninteresting from the back of a milk-carton.

A tiny sound from behind him made Steve whip around to look at the Soldier, like he just now remembered the man in the chair. The sound was a whimper, small and scared and something that a man like the Winter Soldier should never be reduced to making. The Soldier’s face wasn’t blank anymore, it was a mixture of betrayal and terror that turned the blood in Steve’s veins to ice. The Soldier had seemed to be unwilling to get in the chair, probably scared of the pain he knew he was about to endure but this was even worse than that. Now it looked like the Soldier had put his trust in Steve only to realize that Steve might be the worst sadist of all of his handlers. The Soldier had hesitantly accepted Steve’s gestures of friendship and believed that maybe Steve wouldn’t hurt him like most of his handlers did, but now he was proven exactly how wrong he’d been in that belief when Steve wanted him to go through the wipe in even more pain than usual.

“No! Jesus! No.” Steve started, well into panicking. “You can’t-“ He took a breath, spinning back to face the Commander again. “This is torture.” He tried, although he knew that his protesting was futile. This was obviously what had been done to the Soldier for decades, the Commander wasn’t going to risk losing HYDRA’s best weapon just because a junior agent had the moral high ground. And he didn’t really have much of a moral high ground since he’d been washing blood of his hands just an hour ago.

“The Soldier signed up to be a part of the Winter Soldier program, agent Rogers. He was a loyal supporter of Hydra and he volunteered his mind and body to the organization.” Pierce spoke calmly but decidedly, leaving no room for protest. The threat of giving the Soldier to someone who wouldn’t be as disruptive as Steve heavy in the air between them.

“How can someone volunteer to this?” Steve pressed.

“You volunteered for a highly experimental procedure yourself, did you not agent Rogers? There were no guarantees that the serum would make you better. For all you knew you could die, or become even worse.” Pierce did have a point there, and Steve felt himself a little torn. It was true, he didn’t know if once the Soldier had actually agreed to this, to be HYDRA’s most powerful weapon no matter what the consequences or the methods. People had signed up for worse things with less faith.

A buzz of electricity from above the Soldier’s head made Steve turn back to the chair. He found that the Solider was still watching him, looking at Steve like he held the fate of the world in his hands and was about to crush it.

The technician cleared her throat and turned back to her computer and Steve didn’t need to be a technical genius to understand that she was initiating the wiping-process, fed up with the wait. The Soldier squared his jaw and took a deep breath, forcing himself to lie back in the chair as the electricity kicked up in intensity as the metal plates started to move. Another wave of horror crashed through him as he realized that they were actually going to go through with the process without giving the Soldier the mouth guard.

“Wait, wait!” He protested, his heart beating fast against his ribs. The technician rolled her eyes at Steve in a very deliberate way before looking over her shoulder to Pierce. The Commander raised his eyebrows, clearly asking if Steve was going to keep trying to interrupt the process that they weren’t going to stop or if his protest had any substance. Steve grit his teeth, the buzzing of electricity a constant threat in the air, but he nodded to the Commander. The Commander gave the sign of the technician to halt the procedure and the buzzing stopped.

“Just-“ Steve started, at a loss for words. He couldn’t think of anything to say that would convince anyone in the room that this was madness, so he reached across the Soldier and grabbed the mouth-guard from where the technician had put it aside.

Feeling like he was leading an innocent man to the stock and tying the nose around his neck Steve brought the mouth-guard up to the Soldier’s face, nodding encouraging when the Soldier gave him a hesitant look of permission. The man opened his mouth wide, gratefulness flashing across his features before he tipped his head back a bit to give Steve a better angle. Steve took a deep breath and brought the plastic to the Soldier’s lips, carefully tucking it into one corner of his mouth and bringing his free hand up to pull the Soldier’s chin a bit wider. There was a twitch in the tendons of the Soldier’s neck at the contact as Steve was too late to remember that the man didn’t like to be touched. Steve had always been a tactile person and it was hard to suppress those impulses, but he promised himself that he would double his efforts to make sure he didn’t touch the Soldier unless it was a life or death situation. The man didn’t need to be made uncomfortable another minute more of his life.

The second Steve leaned back and the mouth-guard was in place the electricity in the metal contraption flared up again, with doubled intensity. The plates moved closer and closer to the Soldier’s temples until the hairs on his head looked like they were in danger of getting singed. Then they stopped and the technician leaned over to inspect the plates, running her hands over the cuffs restraining the Soldier to the chair and entered a few more things into her computer. When she leaned back the plates jerked toward each other, the sharp spikes burying themselves in the Soldier’s head.

Steve wrenched his eyes away at just a second too late and he knew that the look on the Soldier’s face as his eyes scrounged shut and electric blue and blood red mingled before the metal plates slammed in place, hugging the curves of the man’s face, would haunt his nightmares for years to come. The buzzing intensified even more one the metal plates were secured around the Soldier’s head and the man screamed uncontrollably around the mouth-guard.

Steve spent about thirty seconds entertaining the idea of making a run for it. But even if he managed to figure out the computer enough to shut it down (pretty unlikely) and overpowered the guards in the room (pretty doable) he would still have to fight his way out of the entire base. And even if he managed to get the Soldier away from the base there was still the issue of the Soldier dying without HYDRA’s resources and technology.

He kept track of the time for the first ten minutes, his head filling with the Soldier’s screams until he was unable to focus on the Commander and the technician as they made small-talk around the computer. Then a pungent smell started making its way through the room, strong and unpleasant enough that it made his stomach threaten a mutiny. He couldn’t make out what the smell was at first. It wasn’t excrement although it had been completely understandable if the Soldier had soiled himself during the procedure, and it wasn’t blood either although there was an undercurrent of tangy copper. When he finally realized that it was the smell of burning flesh he had to slam his hand to his mouth, body doubling over as he fought his body’s urge to vomit. He managed to keep the content of his stomach down, and straightened his back as he received a disappointed look from the Commander.

“This is going to take a while.” The Commander announced, turning his back on the Soldier and started heading for the exit. He turned in the door, looking expectantly to Steve.

Steve was glad for the excuse to get out of the room and away from the Soldier’s scream and the terrible smell of burning flesh, but the feeling was quickly followed by a wave of guilt. Just because he could no longer see or hear the Soldier’s pain didn’t mean that it had lessened, and he didn’t have any right to complain about his own discomfort. He was no better than greedy politicians who wanted to prohibit people from sleeping in the streets. It didn’t fix the problem for those who were actually suffering, it only helped ease the conscience of people with three different mansions. At least HYDRA was going to put an end to injustices like that, and once they did they wouldn’t need the Soldier to go on missions anymore, which meant that they wouldn’t need to wipe and reprogram him either. It was a weak consolation but Steve clung to it anyway.

“The technicians handles his physical needs. Your main job is to make sure that the Soldier has the support he needs to execute his missions, and to make decisions he isn’t programmed to handle. If things go wrong on a mission he will look to you for guidance.” Steve nodded, trying to concentrate on listening to the Commander instead of letting the ghost of screams still ringing in his ears overwhelm him. “It is very important that you establish boundaries and correct the Soldier’s missteps, big or small. If you don’t he will take advantage and lose his respect for you – if that happens during a mission it could have catastrophical consequences.” Well, that was one thing that wasn’t going to happen. Steve wasn’t going to punish the Soldier for a single thing – him being in that chair was enough punishment for anyone in a lifetime. The Commander seemed to be reading his mind though.

“If you can’t stomach the job I will give it to someone who can, agent Rogers.”

“Yes Sir.” Steve said dutifully, still not changing his mind. The smell of burnt flesh haunted him even as they returned to familiar parts of the base, and he was thankful when the Commander dismissed him.

“I will summon you when the Soldier is ready again. In the meantime I suggest you watch the video I had sent to your room, perhaps it will ease your conscience a bit.” The Commander said, and if a few agents gave him odd looks as he made his way back to his room at his hurried pace he didn’t notice.

 

 

**Friday, 06.50 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, living quarters**

The video was obviously made a long time ago with primitive camera technology. Steve didn’t know exactly when the Winter Soldier project had been initiated, that information was classified enough that no one even speculated about it. But he knew that the first confirmed kill had been during the Cold War, when the Soldier was under the control of the Russian parts of HYDRA. It’s probably been touched up with modern techniques, because the sound was better than it would have been originally and the colors were sharper, but that was probably to make the viewing experience easier.

 _“So do I just-“_ Steve recognized the voice of the Soldier, only it sounded younger and more easygoing. His body come into view and there was a lot fumbling colors on the screen until he settled down on a stool in front of the camera.

 _“Okay, hi.”_ He said, waving at the camera and biting his lip, obviously feeling a bit sheepish about the wave. The man on the video looked younger than the Soldier as well, but it was obviously him. His hair was shorter, slicked back into a fashion Steve assumed had been considered modern at the time. The man on the screen looked like he cared about his appearance and took pride in the fact that he looked good.

 _“So uhm. I guess I’m really doing this. I’m signing up to be a science-experiment, ’cause some pretty dame thought it would be a good idea.”_ He laughed freely at a face someone must have made off-screen. It was an infectious laugh that had Steve’s lips curling into a smile even though he didn’t really feel like smiling considering that he knew that the same man laughing in front of him was currently writhing in pain somewhere in on the base.

 _“What, come on Peggs, you and those eyelashes of yours dragged me into this kickin’ and screaming, don’t act like you got nothin’ to do with this.”_ The man’s eyes glinted with humor as he flirted with a woman who must be standing right behind the camera-man. Steve shifted a bit in his seat and tried not to imagine what meeting that man today would have been like. His mind betrays him though, swiftly conjuring up a mental image of the two of them sitting in a bar somewhere, the man laughing at something Steve said, shaking his head before turning on him with those eyes, making Steve’s insides melt. ‘You bet those pretty eyelashes at me like that and I’ll think you’re lookin’ to get me into trouble.’ He’d say, leaning over to put his hands on Steve’s thighs, his eyes tracking Steve’s blush as it spreads from his cheeks down his chest. ‘So what if I am-’ Steve would answer, feeling bold from the way he’s being looked at and leaning a bit closer himself ‘-Soldier?’

Steve was fucked, completely fucked and fucked up.

 _“Alright, alright, I’ll be serious. I can be serious.”_ The man frowned, but the quirk of his mouth suggested he wasn’t that serious at all. _“I totally can!”_ He insists, not looking even the tiniest bit serious and it made Steve smile at the screen again. The man cleared his throat and put on the best scowl he could manage while actively trying not to laugh. Steve assumed that someone was making obscene gestures or something behind the camera-man.

 _“My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I volunteer for the Winter Soldier program and I’m proud to serve HYDRA. I’ve been informed of the risks of the procedure and if the worst was to happen it is a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I give my body and my mind to HYDRA, now and for as long as they need it, so that they can use it to bring order to the world.”_ He ends it on a proud smile, looking straight into the camera and momentarily blinding Steve with charm. He revises his earlier fantasy about meeting James Barnes – there is no way Steve would be eloquent enough to do anything but stutter if the man had turned a smile like that on him.

The movie ends on the man standing, coming closer to the camera until his face is practically pressed against the camera. Then he brings a hand up to his hair and drags his fingers through it, chin tilting a bit like he’s checking himself out, giving a wink that makes the butterflies in Steve’s stomach go crazy before backing up. When he’s far enough from the camera that his whole body is in view he salutes and gives a _“Hail HYDRA.”_

The video freezes on that scene, the Soldier saluting proudly in a militarized blue peacoat. Steve sat back on his bed, ordering the video to replay itself. The differences between the Soldier he’s come to know and the man on the screen were so prominent it was hard to believe that they were the same person. Although, of course decades of cry-freeze and war and missions would change a man. At least he had volunteered for the Winter Soldier program like the Commander had claimed, and he had looked sincere, like he was really ready to lay down his life for the greater good he believed in.

 

 

**Friday, 08.30 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, Inner sanctum**

“It’s too risky keeping these words on a computer and we don’t want more copies laying around. This is the original journal from when the Soviets programmed the Soldier.” The Commander explained as he handed Steve a red book. Its cover was worn leather, no title unless you counted the black star. “Reading the words will activate the Soldier’s programming and establishing you as his handler. He will respond to your orders first and won’t listen to orders that goes against them, unless you are incapacitated, in which case he will look to the closest operative with the highest rank.”

Steve turned the book over in his hands and turned his attention to the Soldier. He was still in the chair he’d been in when he was wiped. The hair around his forehead was damp with sweat that hadn’t yet dried and some strands of it looked like it had blood in them. But otherwise the Soldier was completely and unnaturally calm, looking ahead of him with glassy eyes like nothing in the room concerned or even registered with him. It made Steve extremely uncomfortable to see him like that, especially when the memory of the young soldier James Barnes was so fresh. The man on the video had been so open and generous with his emotions, quick to laugh and full of personality. To think that that had been burned away by decades of wipes to create a perfect Soldier was a tragedy.

Steve opened the book and was grateful to find notes in the margin explaining how the words should be pronounced. The Russian looked like the kind of language a child might make up and he wouldn’t have been able to guess a single syllable. Looking for permission to begin from the Commander he stepped a bit closer to the Soldier when the man nodded.

“желание” He read the first word hesitantly, not knowing exactly what to expect from the Soldier since Pierce hadn’t given him anything to go on except handing him the book and telling him to read the words. The Soldier blinked at hearing, but for all Steve knew it could have been a biological need to blink, and not a reaction to the word. He moved on to the next.

“ржавый” That didn’t give him a reaction either, and he was starting to worry that he might not be pronouncing the words right anyway, maybe they didn’t have any effect on the Soldier because he said them wrong. But he threw a quick glance at the Commander and the man didn’t look like anything was out of the ordinary, so he continued.

“семнадцать” The Soldier’s eyes focused on Steve at the third word, suddenly alert and aware of the room and the people in it. Or more specifically, aware of Steve. The sharp focus on Steve was intense and had him swallow before he could continue. There was something dangerous about that look, like he’d activated something he better finish or he would be the one getting finished.

“рассвет” The Soldier grit his teeth at that word, the metal fist clenching where it was still restrained securely to the chair. His eyes grew darker, more dangerous and Steve didn’t doubt that if he wasn’t restrained the Soldier would try and lash out violently.

“печь” The next word made the Soldier cry out in pain, like it had been a hot iron poker to his skin rather than a word. Steve moved to the next word so quick he almost stumbled over the pronunciation.

“девять” It didn’t make the Soldier cry out but it didn’t look like he was in less pain either, but he also looked moderately calmer and less murderous.

“доброкачественный” At that the Soldier let out a long shaky breath, the pained tension rolling off his body as he relaxed against his restraints and stopped straining against them.

“возвращение на родину” The Soldier met Steve’s eyes and for a while Steve wondered if maybe he had mispronounced the word because that one wasn’t easy, but since the Commander didn’t interrupt he continued.

“один” A finality seemed to settle in the Soldier when he heard that word, eyes going calm with the rest of his body as he held Steve’s.

“грузовой вагон” The man in the chair blinked and when he looked at Steve again it was with the expectancy of being given an order.

“готовы соблюдать” The Soldier answered, obviously expecting Steve to say something in response to that judging by the look on his face, making Steve frown and look flip the next page in the book. He couldn’t find anything more though and he had no idea what the Soldier had just said.

“You have to remind him to speak English.” The Commander said. “It’s a glitch, we try every time but we never manage to fix it and he never learns, no matter how many times he has non-Russian handlers.”

The Soldier didn’t show any signs that he’d even heard the Commander, looking only to Steve.

“Can you repeat that in English?” Steve asked, practically hearing the Commander roll his eyes at the phrasing.

“Ready to comply.” The Soldier answered immediately.

“Good.” Steve said, offering the Soldier a smile. The technician, the same woman who had performed the wiping, did something on her computer and the restraints unlocked and vanished back into the chair. The Soldier didn’t make a move to stand though, still focused on Steve.

“A demonstration, perhaps?” The Commander said, coming up to stand next to Steve.

“A demonstration?” Steve asked, not knowing what the Commander was getting at.

“Go on, give him an order.” Pierce said, nodding his head toward the man in the chair who still didn’t seem to notice anyone except for Steve in the entire room.

“Oh.” Steve uttered stupidly. He didn’t like giving the Soldiers orders, but he realized that that was a part of his job now and he’d have to get used to it. At least he could make sure his orders were sane and didn’t cause him unnecessary pain. “Stand up, Soldier.” He said, going with the first thing that crossed his mind.

“Soldier, sit down!” The technician ordered sharply, the second the Soldier moved to get up from the chair. The Soldier looked at her for half a second, not making a move to sit back down, and then turned back to look at Steve. Steve gave a small shake of his head and the Soldier’s shoulders straightened a bit, his body preparing to maintain its standing position even of the technician would try to get him to sit down by using force.

“Too easy.” The Commander said, sounding bored by the display and Steve struggled to think of a more complicated order he could give that wasn’t completely ridiculous or that the Soldier might fail at. But before he could think of something the technician reached for something next to her, touching it to the Soldier’s leg closest to her. It light up at the contact, electricity with an alarmingly high voltage running through the Soldier’s body. The technician held the stun baton to the Soldier’s leg even as he man started shaking, before Steve reacted.

“Come here, Soldier!” Steve called, the only thing he could think of to get the Soldier away from the technician’s reach without breaking her hand and turning the weapon on her to see how easy she found it to follow orders when being tasered. The Commander obviously wouldn’t be pleased if he did that.

The Soldier started to take a step toward Steve and he was pretty sure that there was relief in the man’s eyes even as he fought to keep his face neutral like he wasn’t bothered by the currents of electricity setting his nerves on fire.

But before he could get out of the technician’s reach one of the guards stepped closer from where he’d been standing watch in a corner of the room. He pointed his loaded automatic rifle at the Soldier, finger on the trigger.

“Soldier, sit down!” The guard called, sounding like a man who would have no trouble firing his weapon to make sure that his order was obeyed. At that close distance there was no way the Soldier would be able to step out of the spray of bullets in time, even with his enhancements.

Steve was clenching his fingers into hard fists by his side as the technician still refused to turn the power of on the stun baton and the Soldier considered the conflicting orders he’d been given for about half a second. Then he looked at Steve and pushed past the technician like the weapons trained at him meant nothing. The second he moved Steve did too, stepping in the line of fire between the Soldier and the guard. He was beyond relieved to find that the guard had been bluffing (or maybe he didn’t know if he had authority to shoot the new handler, either way, Steve was glad to not have an additional few holes in his back.)

His heart was beating fast as he turned to the Commander, how looked incredibly amused by the whole situation.

“Now what?” Steve asked. “Sir.” He hurriedly added. He might not agree with the Commander’s way to handle the Soldier but the man was his superior after all, and he was the one deciding if Steve got to keep the Soldier.

“Now-” The Commander started, reaching over to take the red book back from Steve. “I suggest you get acquainted with the Soldier. Report to my office for your next mission tomorrow morning. Take him to your room for a couple of hours, and then his guards will bring him back here for the night.”

 

 

**Friday, 09.25 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, living quarters**

“Do you remember me, Soldier?” Steve asked as soon as the two of them were left alone in his room, the Soldier directed to sit on the replaced chair at his desk and Steve on the edge of his bed. Commander Pierce had said that the Soldier would be permitted to remember him, but with details of his missions removed Steve wondered to what extent. And he was a bit worried that maybe the Commander hadn’t been telling the truth – the fact that the Soldier was walking and talking seemed like a miracle considering how thoroughly his brain had been fried.

“Agent Rogers. You’re my new handler. I’ve been training you.” Steve nodded enthusiastically, hoping that his silence would encourage the Soldier to keep going. The man’s voice was even hoarser than Steve had grown used to and he tried to not think about the reason for that was that he’d probably screamed his throat raw during the wipe.

“You cut me." There is no accusation in the words, just a statement of facts but Steve winces at them anyway. Out of all the things he wanted the Soldier to remember and that's what he fixates on. Although Steve supposes it makes sense. He notices the subtle shift in the man's body, how he leans away from Steve just a little at the memory and he tries not to take it personally. The Soldier has been hurt so much by his previous handlers it's probably natural for him to believe that Steve will treat him the same way.

"I had to." Steve says, doesn't hold back on the regret in his voice.

The Soldier nods slowly. "I disobeyed." He says then and Steve's head snaps up.

"No!" He said quickly. "Or well, technically you did.” Steve added, feeling a bit sheepish about his strong reaction when it made the Soldier’s spine stiffen a bit in the chair. “But I didn’t cut you to punish you. You got hit by a bullet, I had to cut it out."

“Did you shoot me?” The Soldier asked after a second’s hesitation, but when he spoke there was no hesitation in his voice. He sounded clinical, like a doctor that had forgotten that the person they were cutting into on the operation-table was a person with loved ones and hopes and dreams. Like Steve shooting him wouldn’t have been a big deal, he just wanted to know, for science. Or maybe future reference. Steve recoiled at the question, and very nearly took offence at the implication before he forced himself to take a breath and calm down. It wasn’t like the Soldier knew him well enough, the man obviously operated far outside any normal social norms and after how agent Allard had handled personal entertainment Steve shooting him as a punishment for disobeying an order must have seemed pretty logical.

“I would never shot you.” He said, calmly, looking at the Soldier until the man hesitantly met his eyes so that he could hopefully see the seriousness there. Steve hadn’t been able to kill the Soldier when he was a danger to his life on their first mission and he certainly wouldn’t be able to do it now, orders or no orders.

The Soldier looked at Steve like he was assessing him, trying to figure out if Steve was lying or not, but he gave a short nod to confirm the fact after a few seconds. Steve didn’t know if it was because the man decided to take him on his word or if it was because he remembered being shot.

“You cracked one of my ribs. That was a punishment?” The Soldier offered next and Steve was glad that he felt encouraged to keep going, but he really wished that he’d pick memories that didn’t have Steve hurting him.

“No, that was…” Steve trailed off as he thought back on that particular event. Of course the Soldier would look back at it and consider it a punishment. “We were sparring, you had orders to stand down. I didn’t react quick enough to stop my kick.” Steve admitted. “’m sorry about that.” He added when he realized that he hadn’t gotten a chance to say it before.

The Soldier looked a bit thrown by the apology and Steve could see the words he’d been about to say disappear from his lips. The Soldier’s tongue darted out to wet his lips a little, the movement making him seem surprisingly human. He _was_ human of course but it was still an alien thing to see the HYDRA assassin do.

“You’re enhanced.” The Soldier continued without having to be prompted.

“Yeah, I got the same serum you did a few years ago.” Steve explained.

“I’m a better fighter.” The Soldier said, and Steve couldn’t stop the laughter escaping him as he thought back on the arguments they’d had on that subject.

“Well, that’s debatable.” Steve said, cautiously trying for a joke. He didn’t know if contradicting the Soldier might confuse the man’s memory but he desperately wanted to believe that the Soldier remembered enough to stand his ground on the issue.

“No.” The Soldier’s eyes narrowed a bit. “It’s really not.” He said with a finality, the corner of his lip turning up just a little bit in a barely there smirk.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Steve allowed, smiling stupidly wide as the Soldier allowed some of his personality show. “I will be though.” He was quick to add as the Soldier started to look a little bit too smug, even with his minuscule facial expressions.

The Soldier didn’t answer the quip, but Steve had a feeling he did it because he thought addressing it was beneath him, not because he agreed with the statement. He would have been annoyed if it was anyone else, but the Soldier didn’t underestimate Steve and he wasn’t full of himself, he was just that confident in his own abilities.

Steve doesn’t interrupt the Soldier as he watches him filter through his memories for more ones related to Steve. Then the man’s eyebrows contract a bit, the smallest wrinkle appearing on his forehead as he concentrates on something.

“You-“ the Soldier starts, but quiets down to start again, looking like he’s struggling with holding onto his train of thought. “You disobeyed an order.” He said, looking at Steve for confirmation. “You were punished.” That wasn’t a question.

Steve’s heart physically ached at the way the Soldier fixated on punishment.

“Yeah, I still don’t regret doing it though.” Steve said, and that seemed to surprise the Soldier. The man’s mouth opened to say something, before he looked like he thought better of it and closed it again, keeping quiet and cowering his shoulders a bit, eyes turned to the floor at Steve’s feet.

Steve took a guess at what the Soldier had wanted to say though, figuring that the memory wipe had erased his memories of the mission and therefor Steve’s reason for disobeying. “You were on a mission that went south. The team was captured. I led an unauthorized rescue-operation despite the Commander telling me to do stand down.” He explained, ending on a shrug. Sure, he had felt pretty bad-ass going in and succeeding on his own where an entire team had failed, but it wasn’t like he was expecting a medal or anything. The Soldier schooled his expression into a neutral mask before Steve could make out his reaction to the fact.

“You killed my last handler.” The Soldier offered next, sounding sure of that memory.

“Yeah, he won’t hurt you anymore.” Steve said reassuringly, but the Soldier didn’t look especially relieved by his words. His head tilted a little to the side, grey eyes studying Steve.

Then a knock on the door broke the silence between them and a voice from one of the guards announced that the Soldier needed to be taken for maintenance before the mission tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to everyone reading this!!


	13. the Second Mission

**Saturday, 5.10 PM, Steve Rogers, somewhere in Colorado State**

The Soldier looked dangerous and mission ready as the two of them treaded through the forest. He was wearing his full combat uniform again, torso covered in weapons and leather straps and he looked sharp, aware of every sound made in the forest around them. He probably knew how many birds was currently watching them and how many steps they’d taken since leaving the car an hour ago. They’d left the trail a while ago, the Soldier moving to the front and zig-zagging between trees and boulders to leave as few traces behind them as possible. The man moved with confident, never tripping over anything despite the fact that he didn’t look at the ground a single time.

There wasn’t much room for conversation. Chances that anyone was even close enough to overhear them in the forest were minimal - they were far enough off the trail that anyone who wasn’t highly trained soldiers would be seriously lost and in a lot of trouble come nightfall. But they didn’t want to risk drawing attention to themselves anyway. One could never be too careful. Or at least, Steve chose to remain quiet because he didn’t want to make any noise – he didn’t know the Soldier’s reasons for his silence but Steve also suspected there might be a few additional layers behind it for the other man.

The Soldier was wearing his mask again, and the more Steve considered it the more it felt like a muzzle on the man. It obviously didn’t physically stop him from talking, since he had spoken through it before. But it was a psychical barrier, something to remind the Soldier of his place and his role and to make expressing his opinion harder than it should be. Steve had tried striking up conversation when they’d been on the road from the base, a few hours of being crammed inside the back of a van together while they read up on the mission, but all attempts had failed. It had been like talking to someone who didn’t have any opinions at all. The Soldier had understood everything he’d said of course but he hadn’t reacted to any of it, just accepted whatever Steve had said like his words were law. It had been disturbing enough that Steve had eventually shut up and gone back to flipping through the mission-file to work out a plan in silence. The behavior was so different from the glimpses of the Soldier’s personality that Steve had seen on occasion, cold and hard and void of emotion, only giving the simplest possible answer when Steve directed a question at it. Him. When Steve directed a question at _him_.

But a part of Steve was starting to understand how the rest of HYDRA could treat the Soldier like a thing without soul when he looked and acted the part so well.

Knowing that the Soldier had gone in to the Winter Soldier program with his eyes open, willing to sacrifice himself for the cause made Steve feel a bit less guilty about his existence but he wasn’t about to treat him like a mindless thing either. He knew first hand that the Soldier was anything but mindless and he wanted that part of the man as well. He didn’t just want the Soldier to be a weapon he could point at things to finish a mission, he wanted the two of them to be partners. The Soldier was obviously smart and perceptive as hell and it would be stupid to not utilize those traits as well. And he would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit to really enjoying the Soldier’s sense of humor on the rare occasions he’s shown it.

They were in luck when they reached their destination. Their target, agent Stone, was swimming in a small lake and the trees surrounding it provided them with excellent cover. The Soldier started removing a rifle from his back the second they’d secured a good spot between the trees and started assembling his rifle to get the job done. Steve considered him for a few moments, watching flesh and metal fingers work with precision, before putting a hand on the weapon, shaking his head slightly.

The Soldier looked at him with mild surprise, but didn’t hesitate to stop what he was doing.

“A man getting assassinated with a firearm at this distance is going to draw attention. The cops are going to realize that his killer was a professional and they’re going to start digging around.” Steve said, keeping his voice low despite the fact that the only thing around to overhear were small forest animals. “His wife is a Judge, she’s not going to stop investigating her husband’s murder until she finds something.”

The Soldier started putting his gun away again, swiftly removing the ammunition he’d put into it and hanging it over his back again as he accepted Steve’s change to the original plan.

“He’s been influencing his wife’s work for years and relayed a lot of useful information about her trials to Hydra. So if his death looks like an accident she won’t be suspicious and someone else can be sent in to keep an eye on her.” Steve added when the Soldier didn’t ask for an explanation himself and Steve realized that the Soldier wouldn’t care about the explanation behind Steve’s reasons any more than the rifle on his back did.

When the Soldier still didn’t respond Steve couldn’t help feeling a bit insecure about what he’d considered a solid argument and a good plan. The Soldier had more experience with actual field missions like these and senior agents had come up with the initial plan to simply assassinate agent Stone. But Steve had spent the car-ride out to examine the file they’d been given and the more he’d read the more he’d become convinced that an accidental death would be the preferable option.

“What do you think?” He asked the Soldier.

“Yes sir.” The Soldier said immediately, not really an answer to Steve’s question. Steve had a feeling he could have asked the Soldier anything and he still would have gotten the same answer. It was the kind of blind acceptance of someone who knew their opinion wasn’t wanted or didn’t matter, they were expected to say yes so they did. Possibly, given what Steve knew about the Soldier’s past handlers, he knew that anything but a ‘yes sir’ would also bring a lot of pain.

“No.” Steve said, trying not to sound too sharp but stern enough that the Soldier would take him serious. “None of that. If you don’t agree with me I want to know. I’m new at this.” He was pretty damn sure it was a solid plan, or he wouldn’t have suggested it, but he also wasn’t above asking for advice from people with more experience. He’d talked the idea of a changed plan over with the senior agents who had driven them to the location for backup, but they had shrugged and suggested he use the Asset for what he was made for instead of complicating things. They expression on their faces had reminded Steve of someone explaining that they were watching a TV-show they hated because they were too lazy to get up and find the remote control though, and Steve hadn’t bothered pushing. It was his mission after all, and he didn’t need their approval. But he _wanted_ the Soldier’s.

The Soldier looked at him then, really looked at him instead of giving him that blank and obedient stare. He remained quiet though, probably not used to being treated like anyone’s equal and unsure of how to process Steve’s request. Not answering Steve would be in obvious violation of an order but answering would force him to have an opinion.

“It’s a good plan.” The Soldier after a few more seconds of silence. He said it carefully, voice soft and yielding, but he still managed to sound confident. Like he wasn’t just saying it to make Steve happy, but like he’d put a lot of thought info both alternatives and realized which one was the better one.

Steve couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as the Soldier agreed to his plan and found it better than the plan that the two senior agents who were there to back them up had crafted.

They moved closer to the short pier just as their target started swimming back toward land. Judging by the smell coming from the cabin up the small road Mrs. Stone was cooking, giving them the perfect window of opportunity since the windows that look out over the lake only belongs to the set of three bedrooms. The specs of the cabin that the couple vacationed in had been included in the file, HYDRA was nothing if not thorough.

When agent Stone reached the ladder and started climbing out of the water the Soldier turned to him at the exact same time that Steve opened his mouth to tell the Soldier to go for it. He smiled at how synchronized they were already as the Soldier stepped out of the trees, reaching the pier quickly with long strides. Steve felt a bit bad about letting the Soldier do the dirty work, but Commander Pierce had firmly established that that was the way it was supposed to work. The Soldier pulls the trigger, snaps necks and sets the fires. Steve was the handler and his job was to observe and handle the Soldier. The mission was the single focus to the Soldier, Steve was backup and support and pointed the Soldier in the direction of the target and that was it. The handler made sure the Soldier obeyed and followed through on the mission.

The Soldier pulled the agent up the rest of the way from the ladder by the man’s hair, letting the man struggle on his feet to try and fight the Soldier off for a few seconds. The agent didn’t stand a chance against the Soldier of course, but Steve knew exactly what the Soldier was doing. He was letting the man trail around wet footsteps on the pier so that it looked like he’d slipped on wet wooden planks. Then the Soldier dodged a punch from the agent, catching the man easily as he left himself unguarded and grabbed his head. He pushed it into the metal railing of the ladder, hard enough to leave a few drops of blood behind for evidence but not hard enough that the man would die. The Soldier pushed the man back into the water with a light shove.

The agent fought his way back to the surface, arms flailing as he tried to get his head over the surface and pull in enough breath to scream for help. He had too much water in his lungs to get the sound out though but if he was given a few more tries he might be able to call out loud enough that his wife would overhear him. Steve got out from between the trees before he even realized he was moving, but the Soldier was nothing if not through. He stripped a few of his weapons off in a matter of seconds, leaving them on the pier before he dove into the water, head first.

Steve broke into a light run, heading out to the end of the pier, carefully scanning the area to make sure there was no one else in the area watching. The agent was pulled down under the surface, deep enough that the water barely rippled even though Steve assumed the man was trashing against the Soldier’s hold. Steve hadn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until the Soldier appeared at the surface again, not even gasping despite the fact that he’d been without air for long enough for a man to drown. Steve gathered up the discarded weapons as the Soldier swam his way to the shore, agent Stone’s limp body in a tight grip under the metal arm.

They left the agent half washed up on the shore since they wanted him to be found before the evidence of the slippery wet pier and the blood from where he supposedly hit his head could disappear. If the man was presumed missing it would draw additional attention to the case with search parties who might stumble upon their tracks in the woods and divers and journalists. Better that his wife found him on the shore quickly.

“Let’s head back.” Steve said as the Soldier walked up to him, rivers of water dripping from his clothes, his hair and his eyelashes. The Soldier nodded in agreement as he used his left hand to squeeze some water from his cargo pants.

“Sorry we don’t have anything for you to change into.” Steve made a face at how uncomfortable it must be to be soaking wet, especially in heavy boots and layers of uniform. The material was probably water resistant but short of a wetsuit nothing would have been able to resist a full on swim. And now they had to hike through the forest for almost two hours.

“It’ll dry.” The Soldier offered with a shrug, like he honestly didn’t mind. Steve wasn’t fooled though. He contemplated calling the senior agents who were waiting at the van where Steve and the Soldier had been dropped off at the edge of the forest when the Soldier suddenly stopped. Steve reacted instantly to the way the other man tensed up, preparing for a fight and took one of his own guns out.

He looked at the Soldier, eyebrow raised in question as he tried picking up on what the man had reacted to. The Soldier pointed to his ears, signaling Steve to listen, and a second later Steve heard it too. He had to strain to pick up on the sounds but those were definitely heavy thuds indicating a fight coming from the cabin. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else in the cabin with Mr. and Mrs. Stone, but after a few seconds the sound of another man made its way down to the lake as well.

Steve started up toward the cabin, long but quiet steps, the Soldier right behind him without having to be told to follow. There was definitely a fight going on inside the cabin, the sounds getting louder as they came closer to the house and getting more intense as the quarrel escalated. The sound of a chair being flipped over and a knife clattering to the floor had Steve deciding that whatever was happening they needed to step in. The chances of someone mugging a remote cabin that HYDRA just happened to have an agent at that day was extremely low, and the chances of someone possibly getting murdered at the same time as Mr. Stone had accidentally drowned was even slimmer. They needed to know what was going on.

Coming around the front of the cabin Steve stopped dead in his tracks, and if the Soldier had been anything other than a supersoldier they would have collided with each other. The Stone’s car wasn’t alone in the driveway, but Steve had expected to see another vehicle. The car he expected to see was not the HYDRA van that they’d been riding in from the base though. That car was supposed to be waiting for him and the Soldier back at the start of the trail on the opposite side of the forest Steve and the Soldier had hiked through for hours in order to leave as little traces as possible of HYDRA being anywhere near the cabin.

A loud curse from inside the cabin put Steve back into action-mode and he didn’t holster his gun as he motioned the Soldier to follow him in. They stepped into the fight the second they were on the other side of the door, the smell of burning food mixing with the smell of fresh blood. Steve guessed knife wound since they hadn’t heard any gunshots. Their targets wife was muffled with a makeshift cloth, probably a ripped pillowcase judging by the floral print but managing to look pretty damn intimidating. She turned furious eyes toward Steve and the Soldier as they stepped over the threshold, but the temper in her eyes died down quickly as she looked the new intruders up and down. Steve’s pride wasn’t the slightest bit hurt when she passed him quickly to look over his shoulder at the Winter Soldier, the sight of him making fury turn to fear. Steve imagined the picture the Soldier must make, dripping wet like he’d come up from the sea like Poseidon, power radiating from the width of his shoulders, metal arm gleaming dangerously and the mask the perfect detail to make him the star character of any horror movie. But Steve was a focused agent and he wasn’t going to be distracted from the situation at hand by turning around to see exactly what the woman could see, even though it was extremely tempting.

“Come to join the party?” One of the agents said, pushing the woman down on a couch that was missing several of its pillows. She’d put up a good fight before the agents had overpowered her it seemed.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, barely contained rage in his voice. This was sure as hell not a part of the plan and it blew discretion all to hell. Commander Pierce was very big on discretion, and Steve knew how it went. This was his mission, he was responsible for everything and even if he technically had nothing to do with this mess he’d get the blame for it. No way the Commander would let him keep the Soldier if he couldn’t even handle two team mates.

“We got sick of waiting in the forest.” The same agent shrugged. Steve was pretty sure his name was Harris, that he’d been with HYDRA for about as long as Steve had been alive.

“That wasn’t the plan.” Steve gritted out through his teeth, feeling ready to punch both agents.

“The plan sucked rookie. It should have been a simple in an out situation, but you had to take the long way around. We got bored. You go wait in the car and see how you like it.” Agent Harris struck the woman across the jaw as she tried to get away from where he’d put her, pulling his gun from the back of his pants to aim at her. She tried saying something from behind the fabric in her mouth but Steve doubted she was pleading for her life by the angry look on her face.

“This is a mess!” Steve protested, gesturing with both hands to the state of the cabin and the woman on the couch but referring to the whole mission. They were going to have to kill the wife of course, she’d seen their faces and (maybe more importantly) the Winter Soldier. Even if she didn’t know who he was she might be able to dig up some information. The metal hand wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

“It won’t be once we’ve torched the place.” Harris said, rolling his eyes at Steve like that part of the plan somehow made sense of the senior agents bad judgement.

“You’re not setting the place on fire!” Steve argued, because that was a terrible idea.

“Look kid. We’re going to have out fun, light this up and let local law enforcement deal with it. They won’t trace anything back to us because no one knows that Hydra exists.”

Steve suppressed a shudder at the way the agent said ‘have out fun’ because you didn’t need a very vivid imagination to know what he meant by that. The woman didn’t miss that part of it either apparently, renewing her struggles until the second agent pushed her down into the couch again, hands behind her back and legs under his weight.

“Enough!” Steve called, stepping further into the room to attempt to deescalate the situation but the before he could reach out to grab agent Harris and bodily drag the man out to the van or something like that the gun was suddenly aimed at _him_.

“What the-“ He exhaled, completely caught off guard by the way Harris had turned on what was supposed to be his own team.

“I don’t know why the hell Pierce likes you so much kid, but you’re nothing. You haven’t done shit to earn the Soldier or even this mission. So when I tell you to go wait in the van you do it, cause the Commander isn’t here to give you special treatment now. And don’t think I won’t shot you if you test me, I know it won’t kill you but it will hurt.”


	14. the Punishment

**Saturday, 6.45 PM, Steve Rogers, still somewhere in Colorado State**

Steve was momentarily stunned by the hostility of the senior agent’s words, enough so that he can only stare into the barrel of the gun as it’s pointed at him. He knew that he needed to prove himself to Commander Pierce of course, that he hadn’t worked nearly as hard as many other agents who were surely angling to replace Captain Walker and agent Allard as the Soldier’s handler, but he hadn’t realized that some would question him to this degree. He had assumed that the chain of command would be the end of it, that since Commander Pierce said Steve was mission ready the others would agree and let him lead without question because the order came from higher up.

Considering his situation he realized that Agent Harris critique wasn’t completely unfounded – he had proved himself a capable agent when he rescued the Soldier and the others from the ambush in Canada, sure. But HYDRA had an abundance of capable agents, being capable didn’t set Steve apart from anyone else. And he had gone against orders and disobeyed, and if any other agent that someone who wasn’t as valuable as Steve because of the serum in his body had tried the same stunt they would have been executed for sure. Steve had gotten a slap on the wrist – the lashes on his back hurting while they were inflicted but now they were mostly thin scarring stripes over his back and would be replaced by smooth skin at the start of the next week.

He didn’t have dozens of successful missions or countless lives saved in his resume, only basic training and a few easy missions where he was one of many. Hell, he hadn’t even made nice with most of the other agents on the base, preferring to eat and train alone because he had little in common with the rest of the operatives. They all knew he was a good fighter of course, enough agents had been watching him spar with the Soldier that practically everyone at the base knew how he could stand his ground against the deadly fighter for minutes before he went down. But they’d never actually seen him hurt anyone, the sparring with Brock Rumlow and the occasional buff trainer only play-matches really. There was no reason for any of them to respect him or believe in his talent except for rumors.

Agent Harris trigger-finger twitched a little, his wrist making a flicking motion to get Steve to hurry up and make a decisions before he actually fired the gun and Steve didn’t doubt the seriousness of his threat. He’d get in trouble for shooting Steve, but Steve would be the one getting the worst of it for not being good and commanding enough, for losing control over the agents that were supposed to follow his orders.

Steve was a second away from tackling agent Harris to the ground when suddenly a blur of black got between him and the gun, drops of lake-water sticking to him like the wind had blown a rainstorm his way. There was a cracking sound of metal and plastic breaking and then agent Harris gun clattered to the floor in two pieces, dripped apart by the Soldier’s hands.

The Soldier’s metal fist closed around agent Harris throat, lifting the man from the ground like holding a man in one hand was no feat at all (probably because it wasn’t). A cry of surprise and then a string of curses erupted from the other agent as he scrambled from the couch where he’d been starting to undress the Judge and tried to get his weapon out.

“Soldier! Stop!” Steve ordered once he’d collected himself from the surprise of the Soldier stepping into the fight and was able to get the words out. The Soldier turned his head to him, eyes sparking with anger. Was it anger? Yeah, Steve was pretty sure it was anger, but the emotion wasn’t directed at him for interrupting, it was lingering from the way the Soldier had been looking at the agent dangling in front of him. Steve had never seen the Solider angry before. He fought with detachment and sharp focus and he sparred with clinical observing in his eyes, but never with anger, not even when he was being shot at or forced to suffer cruel punishments at the hands of agent Allard. It was quite the thing to witness though, dark eyes stormy with the intense emotion, damp hair framing his face and his combat gear black and his bulk even more intimidating. Steve swallowed reflexively and forced himself to not get distracted by the Soldier while lives were literally at stake. “Stand down!” He repeated when the Soldier didn’t move a muscle to obey his initial order, eyebrows contracting a bit like the man didn’t agree with the orders given and was considering disobeying.

The Soldier gave a squeeze of the metal fingers around agent Harris throat, the plates of his metal arm shifting as he did and for a second Steve wondered if the Soldier was actually going to disobey him and crush the man’s windpipe. But then the man dropped to the floor and the Soldier stepped away from him, putting distance between himself and the agents and Steve and like he’d been ordered to. He was far from a blank slate obeying orders though, a large gun appearing in his flesh hand as he looked between Steve and the still standing agent with alert eyes, clearly ready to jump back in if Steve ordered him to.

Steve was distracted (again) from watching the Soldier when the click of a safety being turned off reminded him that there was still a very real possibility that he might get shot and that he had to salvage the mission before everything went to hell. He lunged at the second agent before he could aim the gun, refraining from the temptation of turning the weapon on the man and simply shooting him. He’d stopped the Soldier from fighting his battle because that would only prove that he wasn’t strong and good enough to handle disobedience himself and it would only undermine him in the future. He could practically hear how Brock Rumlow would laugh at him for needing the Winter Soldier to everything for him, including tying his shoes or something equally small. And simply executing the agents on the spot would be too easy compared to HYDRA’s standards. They’d endangered a mission and disobeyed orders, risked unnecessary exposure on the organization and its activities and challenged Steve’s authority. Going easy on them because he was wrapped up in the heat of the moment would be a reflection of his own weakness and lack of discipline and _someone_ would have to pay for the mess that this mission had become. He had no doubt it would be him if he came back their dead bodies.

Steve tossed the gun into another room, dodged a fist aiming for his face and got a tight grip around the attacking agent. He held the man’s hands behind his back in an inescapable grip, unless the man was ready to break both his thumps to slip out of the hold, and wrapped the other hand around the man’s throat. Steve held a steady pressure until the man was choked out, unconscious and limp in his arms. By then agent Harris had pulled out a knife from his belt and was going for Steve’s calf, breathing heavy from where his throat must still be hurting and the sound of it giving away his position just before he could lift his arm to stab. Steve grabbed the knife just as it caught in the leg of his pants, yanking it up and tearing the fabric for a few inches before he could pull it from Harris grasp and flip it around in his hand. He was kneeling over Harris in a second, one knee on his chest and the other by his shoulder, the knife pressed firmly under the man’s jaw.

There was a healthy amount of fear for his life in the agents eyes as he stared up at Steve, throat bobbing as he nervously swallowed against the edge of the knife, but no remorse and still no respect. Steve hadn’t really expected a quick ass-kicking to change the man’s mind though.

“We are not monsters.” Steve hissed, leaning over the agent to get closer and make sure his message was received. “We are not the kind of people who rape and kill an innocent woman because of the sins of her husband. We’re trying to make a better world dammit.” He gritted out in frustration for having to even explain something like that, applying more pressure on the knife, a drop of red trailing down the underside of the blade. The sight of blood made him yank the knife away though, quickly pressing the palm of his hand against the small scrape he’d made as to not let any DNA stick to the floor. They couldn’t afford to leave anything like that behind. Local law enforcement would probably comb through the entire cabin looking for evidence since the victim was a high profile judge. He wanted to keep up with the lecture but the sooner they could clean up and get out the better.

A blow to the head (perhaps a bit harder than strictly necessary) left agent Harris unconscious as well and Steve stood up, wiping the hand with blood on his pants to get it clean. The woman on the couch had realized that Steve the two unconscious agents meant Steve would turn his attention to her now and was starting to scream behind her gag, trying and failing to get off the couch.

Steve didn’t pay her much attention as he walked into the next room where he’d discarded the second agents gun, picking it up to walk back over to her.

“I’m sorry about this, Mrs. Stone. I planned to leave you out of this.” He apologized before firing the gun, a clean headshot that killed her before she could realize he was about to pull the trigger. He made a face as blood started seeping into the couch cushions and bent down to haul agent Harris up over his shoulder. When the unconscious man’s head banged against every doorway on the way out it was completely intentional. At Steve’s gesture to the second agent the Soldier picked up the other unconscious body and followed.

The van was waiting for them outside, the keys still in the ignition because apparently being a senior agent didn’t mean the men were immune to stupidity. He made quick work of tying the two agents together with zip-ties, just in case they woke up during the ride back. Not that that was very likely. Then he went back into the cabin and looked it over to make sure the agents hadn’t left anything behind. He pulled a chair from its place by the table and knocked a few decorating pieces and picture frames to the floor to make it look like it had been more of a struggle. He fired the gun twice randomly, shooting through a window and into a wall to, also to make it look like whoever had been in the cabin weren’t professionals. He considered going through the couple’s valuables and make it look like a robbery gone wrong, but in the end he decided against it. Since Mrs. Stone had been a judge it was probably safe to say that she had a lot of enemies that the police was likely to suspect of murder.

He got back out to the van, the Soldier waiting for him by the side of the vehicle.

“That was a mess.” He sighed, partly to himself because it wasn’t like he expected a response from the Soldier on things that weren’t direct questions anymore. The Soldier surprised him by stepping in close as he reached for the door to the driver seat, the sudden and unexpected proximity of the assassin making the rhythm in Steve’s heart flutter a little. He thought that the Soldier might have noticed his body’s reaction, the man’s eyebrows drawing together just the slightest.

“Are you hurt?” The Soldier asked, voice no louder than a mumble, further muffled by the mask. The question was so unexpected that Steve didn’t really know what to say even though the obvious answer was no, he wasn’t hurt. His pride might be stinging a bit, the thought of going back to Commander Pierce and explain that he’d lost control over the men under his command making for a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. But he wasn’t hurt and he wasn’t sure why the Soldier would ask that. When Steve didn’t answer for a few seconds the Soldier shifted his eyes, head angling down and to the side a bit to pointedly look down at the gash in Steve’s tactical pants, before going back up to meet Steve’s eyes again. Oh. Was that concern in the Soldier’s eyes?

“No.” Steve breathed out after another few seconds, distracted enough by the Soldier’s behavior that he couldn’t really find his voice at first. “No.” He asserted more firmly, shaking his head a bit. “Didn’t break the skin.” He explained further, pulling the pant leg up with his hand to prove it when the Soldier kept looking intensively at him like he didn’t quite believe it.

The Soldier studied the unmarked skin of his leg for six seconds (Steve might have been counting) before giving a small nod and stepping back, out of Steve’s space and bowing his head like he suddenly remembered his place. Steve had no doubt in his mind that agent Allard and probably Captain Walker would have punished the Soldier for that kind of behavior. It was too assertive and possibly threatening, stepping in close like that without an explicit order to do so, and probably more important, it wasn’t the kind of behavior that a weapon should display.

Steve really didn’t like the way the Soldier’s eyes were fixed on the ground between his combat boots, long hair still damp from the lake hanging in his face but he didn’t know what to say to bring the man’s personality back to the surface and make him understand that Steve wasn’t going to beat him raw for every little thing.

“Let’s get you changed.” Steve said, surprising himself with the words because he had really meant to tell the Soldier to get into the car so that they could drive off. But watching the way the Soldier’s heavy clothes clung to the outlines of his muscles gave Steve a terrible conscious. They had hours of driving ahead of them and the Soldier shouldn’t be forced to be uncomfortable for that time just because he could handle pain and discomfort. He had been the one loyal to Steve and following orders the whole day (well, there had been the slight hesitation to let go of agent Harris but the hesitation and unwillingness to do something really only made following the order all the more notable, didn’t it). If anything the man had deserved a reward.

The Soldier’s brows furrowed and he angled his head to look up at Steve at the words, though not directly meeting his eyes. Steve walked to the back of the van, opening the doors and dragging the still unconscious agents to the opening. They didn’t have an extra supply of clothes in the van, but Steve felt an ironic sense of satisfaction as he started undressing the second agent, the man who had been trying to work the Judge out of hers not an hour ago. Let him wake up in his underwear and get paraded through the base like that, see how he liked being treated that way.

The Soldier watched from over Steve’s shoulder, still looking a bit confused when Steve turned around, dry pile of clothes in his hands which he extended to the man.

“You’re not sitting in the car in cold and wet clothes for hours. Change into these.” Steve prompted firmly, pushing the clothes into the Soldier’s arms until he had no choice to grab them or they’d fall on the ground.

The Soldier blinked at Steve, looking down at the clothes in his hands and then on his own wet ones. Then he put the dry ones down on the ground and got started on the leather straps covering his torso, unbuckling them and methodically removing the weapons strapped to the vest whenever one got in the way. The sheer amount of weapons overwhelmed Steve as he watched the Solider strip them off. Besides the visible guns there were several smaller knives hidden behind layers of fabric and the Soldier placed each one of them with care on the van’s floor, a neat and deadly row of weapons.

Steve stared a second too long at the broad expanse of the Soldier’s chest once he pealed the last piece of Kevlar from his torso and blushed as the man immediately started in on the belt of his pants. He turned around before anything more could be exposed, surprised that the Solider would strip down to skin when Steve was standing right there. He walked around to the front of the van to give the man some privacy while he continued changing and contemplated whether or not bleaching his retinas would permanently damaging his eyes or if the serum would heal him from that, because he really needed a way to scrub the image of the Soldier’s powerful torso from his mind. He could tell that that wasn’t happening in a near future though, his fingers itching for paper and pencils so that he could draw the lines of clearly defined muscles, trying to capture the strength and grace of the Soldier. He hadn’t felt the urge to draw since his mother died years before HYDRA found him and gave him the serum, but the Soldier, still damp hair and piercing eyes were inspiring him to pick up his old hobby again.

 

 

**Saturday, 10.50 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the Cafeteria**

The cafeteria was full despite the late hour, people crowding around Steve in a lose circle, the perimeter set by the guards that surrounded the Winter Soldier now that they were back at base, tension and anticipation so thick in the air Steve felt like he could almost touch it.

He’d made quite the scene when he and the Soldier came back to the base, literally dragging agent Harris and agent Banks (Steve had called Commander Pierce to give an update on the mission in the van and the Commander had supplied him with the name of the second agent) into the base. It would have been nothing for Steve to pick the men up and carry them of course, but he wanted to make a point and he wouldn’t get any respect for being considerate to the agents who had challenged his authority.

They’d woken up during the ride, tried to struggle while Steve dragged them through the corridors and escape the humiliation, especially agent Banks who was still stripped down to only his underpants.

Once the curious crowd had gathered, informed that there was event they should not miss by the voice of the AI Zola, the senior agents had swallowed their pride and was reconsidering their life’s choices, not quite begging but promising Steve that they’d never question his orders or his capabilities again. Steve couldn’t have let them off the hook if he’d wanted too though, they’d sealed their own fate as soon as they’d decided to make up their own plan, but the truth of the matter was that Steve didn’t really want to let them off easy. He knew very well what they’d been planning to do if he hadn’t been there to stop them, what they’d do to the innocent woman and probably had done to several other people before. Not only had they hurt innocent people needlessly, they’d probably unnecessarily tortured those who couldn’t defend themselves, but they’d used HYDRA to do it. HYDRA which was working toward making the world a better place for all people and because of them Mrs. Stone and others were dead before they had a chance to experience that future. _And_ they’d tried to shoot him, revenge wasn’t an inherently bad thing, he was allowed to feel good as his fist connected with agent Harris jaw for the what-ever number well in the thirties he was on now.

The man was trying to scream, the sound restricted by the amount of blood stubbornly trickling down both his airway and his throat and then he couldn’t anymore as Steve felt the satisfying crack of his jaw shattering under his knuckles. He could have broken the man’s face with a single punch, but this wasn’t a simple execution. He had to make examples out of the men to deter anyone from even thinking about questioning him and dying was not something most agents of HYDRA feared. The threat of losing one’s life wasn’t enough to make people fall in line and follow the chain of command.

Order only comes through pain.

Or in this case, the _fear_ of pain. The bravest and toughest agents and operatives wouldn’t bow their heads at just any threat – they had to see that Steve could back his words up with actions if they tried to question him.

He switched his attention over to agent Banks, letting Harris curl up in a fetal position on the floor and try to breathe without hurting his jaw. He reached for a whip that the Commander had supplied him with, among other things, and tested the swing of it in the air. The sharp crack made several agents in the audience jump and muscle memory had Steve’s back throbbing a bit even though the wounds were all healed up now. Wounds healing did not erase the memory of pain, and the man who had swung the whip at his back hadn’t had an ounce of the serum in him and yet it had hurt enough that Steve had been biting his lip to hold in his cries of pain.

Agent Banks didn’t even last three lashes before he cried out, the whip drawing blood at the first try even though Steve’s aim was a bit off and he only got the man’s shoulder. He adjusted his stance though and swung again, this time hitting the better part of the man’s back. The man’s back and the floor were indistinguishable in a lake of red by the time the agent fell unconscious from blood-loss (or maybe from pain, Steve couldn’t tell). There was a low curse from someone in the audience as Steve straightened his back and let the whip drop, splashing in blood and Steve looked up just in time to see Rumlow elbowing a man next to him subtly. Rumlow was too experienced to show off any emotions, watching the violent scene in front of him like he was bored with it all, but the man next to him was visibly upset. Steve guessed he’d been the one cursing and recognized him as one the agents closest to Rumlow and Steve suddenly realized that he was used to seeing Harris in their group as well. Harris and Rumlow went on plenty of missions together and the reason Steve knew the man’s name was because he made sure to keep track of who was close to Rumlow since it was always a good choice to stay as far away from them as possible. This was bound to come back and bite Steve now, Rumlow wasn’t going to forget Steve killing one of his allies but he couldn’t back out now.

He turned back to agent Harris, fully intending on exposing his bones with a long knife or something equally gruesome and unappetizing (especially so since they were in the cafeteria) when he caught a glimpse of the Soldier out of the corner of his eye. The Soldier was standing at attention, back straight and shoulders squared, looking no less intimidating without his arsenal of weapons strapped to his usual uniform. But there was a rigidness to his posture that Steve wasn’t used to seeing and the man was obviously uncomfortable by the display of violence he was witnessing, eyes tracking Steve’s smallest movements and he had this hunted look to him, like he was a deer who had just smelled a hunter but knew he had no escape route. The idea that the Soldier, who had no doubt not only seen but executed worse methods of torture was unsettled by Steve punishing men who deserved it caught him off guard and he paused for longer than discretion allowed.

The second the Soldier noticed that Steve was looking at him the fingers of the man’s metal arm twitched a bit, and Steve could swear that he was setting his jaw behind the mask he was still wearing, like he was steeling himself for pain. As if he expected the next stroke of the lash would hit _him_.

Steve dropped the whip to the floor like it had burned him, pulling out a gun from its holster at his hip and shot the two senior agents in front of him. The sudden gunshots made the audience draw a collective gasp of surprise, some reaching for their own weapons instinctively before they realized they weren’t in a danger. There was a beat of heavy silence as entire room watched blood pool on the floor where they normally shared meals, agent Harris and Banks now as dead as the cows they ate for dinner, and then Steve caught the eye of the Soldier. He motioned with his head for the man to follow him and quickly headed for the nearest exit, the circle of onlookers parting to clear a path for him so fast they stumbled over each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are absolute love! Hit me with criticism, what you want for the future of the fic or praise - anything and everything makes me more invested and keeps me writing!


	15. the Shower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First thing first: I apologize to everyone still keeping with this story for making you wait so long for an update, life has been crazy between having a fulltime job and trying finish my bachelor-thesis and I'm been stuck creatively. So I decided give chapter 15 a makeover. If you've already read Chapter 15: the Shower which was written from the Soldier's POV (most of you probably already have) you can just skip down to **"Sunday, 1.35 AM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4"** and keep reading the parts I've added from there.
> 
> Not exactly proud of this chapter, but the next one will be better, I guarantee that because I'm already stoked about writing it!
> 
> And thank you soooo much for your comments, they keep me inspired enough to keep writing!

 

 

**Sunday, 1.15 AM, the Winter Soldier, Location classified, Base 4**

The new handler is different. It makes the Soldier nervous. He’s not supposed to feel such an emotion. It’s not fitting for a soldier, for a weapon. He shouldn’t feel things at all really, but he does because he is deeply flawed. He can’t hold onto the lessons that gets beaten into his skin. No matter how deep they go he always ends up messing up. The torn skin on his back is still a few degrees warmer than the rest of his body from the still healing wounds he received the last time he failed a mission, but here he is again, about to be punished for the several errors he’s made since then.

Maybe he needs to be wiped.

His stomach turns at the thought, a shiver going through his whole body as his muscles remembers the all-consuming pain that the chair always brings. He doesn’t want to be wiped, and he’s glad that his handler has his back to him so that he can’t see the Soldier momentarily lose control of his body.

Not only is his new handler different, but he is also very perceptive. Maybe it’s one of the reasons for why he is different. It makes his handler dangerous. He looks at the Soldier and sees through the mask of indifference, picks up on the small things that slips through the cracks of the Soldier’s control. Most operatives, handlers, technicians and other people who handle him doesn’t look past his mask and the metal arm. They see a weapon and believe that that’s all he is and so they treat him as such. They talk about him like he isn’t there, they tell each other secrets like he is no more sentient than the clock on the wall and leave themselves defenseless.

The new handler is dangerous because he sees that there is more to the Soldier, that he isn’t just another weapon pulled out of armory-storage whenever he’s needed. He tries to be that, so hard. He tries to be a blank slate, just a tool for someone to aim at the target because that’s what he is supposed to be. Because weapons don’t feel pain. But the handler has seen the Soldier in pain and he knows that the Soldier has independent thoughts, that he is weak to the whims of his body and greedy enough to take food even though he was told he didn’t need it. It’s a wonder really, that the handler has waited this long to punish the Soldier.

Or maybe it’s a calculated strategy. Maybe the handler has noticed how the Soldier is on edge and he wants to keep him that way. Maybe the waiting is a part of the punishment. He has had handlers who made him hurt himself, and ones who made him go fetch the items he was going to be hurt with, he distantly remembers, but nothing has ever been as effective as this he thinks.

A part of him wishes that his handler will get to it, that he will punish him right now in the empty corridor they’re walking down to so that he will _know_ in which form the pain will come. So that he can learn, so that his body can absorb the pain and the lesson behind it. So that he can brace himself for the punishment the next time when he inevitably fails, because not knowing what to expect from his new handler is making it itch just underneath the surface of his skin. (Rubbing layers off doesn’t work to scratch it. He’d tried, until he realized that he wasn’t supposed to feel any itches at all, much less act on trying to soothe them.)

Weapons doesn’t feel things.

Another part of him though, a bigger part, that keeps him from prompting his new handler to just get it over with, wants to push the inevitable as far ahead of him as he possibly can. It’s been… nice, not being punished for things both he and his handler knows he should be punished for.

He’s not allowed nice things though, has done nothing to earn them and never will. The only way he is good enough to earn a reward is when he succeeds in becoming a flawless weapon and once he is he won’t care about nice of not nice, because _weapons don’t feel_. He is once again thankful that his handler is still moving with his back turned to him, certain that the clever man would be able to read his expression and find his wants and wishes written clearly on it, adding yet another thing he needs to be reprimanded for onto the growing pile.

But as nice as it felt to escape punishment he is deserving of it’s also made him wreckless and impulsive, things that he thought had been trained out of him a long time ago. It makes him brave in a whole different way than he’s used to. Makes him give in when his handler coaxes opinions from him, even though he knows he’s not supposed to have them and even if he does he isn’t supposed to voice them. It always happens, he always slips but usually it takes much longer before he caves to his own weakness. He knows that that’s why he needs the punishments, so that his body will remember the pain and keep in him check. Going without those lessons has started to make him unravel.

It’s not that he fears pain itself.

Pain is nothing to him, a shocking burn to his nerve-system that will fade eventually. It’s unpleasant and he’d rather not be in pain but he isn’t afraid of experiencing it. He will jump from buildings, stop trucks with his body and take as many bullets as he has to finish a mission and he never hesitates in fear of getting hurt. Pain itself if good. It seeps into his bones and his muscles and the back of his brain, that part that doesn’t forget things even after he’s put into the chair and for a while the sense-memories are enough to keep him in line.

But the way pain makes his body fail him is what really makes the punishments an effective deterrent. The way it makes his body shake and squirm and scream without his consent, the way he physically _can’t_ follow orders to stand still or be quiet, the reminder that he can’t even do the simplest thing right. Knowing that his handler and however else many people will see how undisciplined and weak and flawed he is makes is what keeps him really motivated to avoid anything that will put him in a position like that.

Being in pain makes him _weak_. Vulnerable.

The handler stops in front of a non-descript door that the Solider recognizes as the entry to the man’s private room. The destination surprises the Soldier a bit, since that’s not standard protocol. Most handlers would have taken him back to his cell and administer his punishment where the blood was easily washed away along with the dirt and grime still clinging to him from the mission.

It’s not his place to question his handler though and he tries to make his mind blank, pushes the thought that’s too close to critique of a handler to be acceptable aside, and stands at attention. He is ready to suffer the consequences of his terrible behavior.

His handler just looks at him though, eyebrows drawn together like he’s thinking hard about something, the weight of his body shifting subtly form one foot to the other like he’s not aware of even doing it. The apprehension gnaws at the Soldier’s determination, pulls at the threads of his conscious like it’s trying to unravel his entire being. He needs to be sharp and sure, single-mindedly focused on the task in front of him at all times. The part of him that wishes that his handler will just decide on what to do to him grows bigger.

The Soldier wonders if that’s the problem, if his handler hasn’t decided on what form of punishment will be the most effective and satisfying. He remembers Commander Pierce saying that his handler was new and quite unexperienced and the Soldier wonders if he should offer a few suggestions. He is an expert on the subject after all. But he decides against it after a few seconds when his stomach flutters uncomfortably at the thought of his handler choosing any of the methods that has proven most effective to use to hurt him.

“Are you alright?” His handler asks, taking a few slow steps toward the Soldier and the Soldier forces the muscles in his body to lock so they won’t flinch away from the handler on instinct. He won’t show weakness yet, not when the pain hasn’t even started yet. He is not that pathetic. The question confuses him though. He isn’t sure what his handler is asking, doesn’t know what he wants the Soldier to answer.

“I’m functional.” He settles on, voice steady and sure despite his internal hesitation. “Mission ready.” He adds quickly when his handler sighs and gives a small shake of his head, obviously not getting the answer he was looking for. “No injuries, emergent needs or malfunctions.” The last one might be a stretch, he’s been malfunctioning plenty since he met his new handler, but he’s not in this very second so it’s technically not lying. The punishment is bound to be much worse if he admits to being flawed in more ways and the Soldier _doesn’t want to be punished_.

He clenches his teeth together inside his mouth, jaw throbbing a bit from the force of it. It doesn’t matter what he wants. It doesn’t matter if he wants to be punished or not because weapons don’t have opinions on things like that. He _needs_ to be punished or he’ll fuck up again down the line, it’s inevitable. Terrible things happen whenever he doesn’t get punished properly enough to learn his lessons.

“Yeah but.” His handler starts, sighing to himself and then going quiet without finishing his thought. It’s unusual, and not the way the Soldier is used to getting talked to. It feels a lot like a conversation, although the Soldier isn’t really sure how he knows that because he doesn’t _have_ conversations. People talk at him and give him orders, sharp and authoritative (even when they are so scared of him that their voices shake) and when they’ve said what they need to they turn away. They don’t start sentences without finishing them on an order.

“Do you want a shower?” His handler asks a minute later when he seems to realize that the Soldier isn’t going to say anything. The Soldier doesn’t know why his handler would expect him to say anything since he hasn’t been prompted to, and he starts to worry that maybe he is missing something and that his handler is going to be even more enraged by his silence, so the question is a relief. Even though it’s obviously a test, like the Soldier is dumb enough to actually fall for it.

“If you want me to, sir.” He answers dutifully like it doesn’t matter to him the slightest whether he is clean or not. Anything with the word want in it is a set-up, constructed to reveal his flaws. He fell for it in the beginning, memories hazy from pain as he remembers admitting to wanting things like food or rest before he could be taught properly that weapons doesn’t want things. He is better than that now though, but he momentarily forgot that his new handler is different from the others.

His new handler frowns deeper, utterly unconvinced by the sincerity in the Soldier’s statement as his eyes rake over the Soldier’s dirty body. The Soldier tries to search his face for something that gives away the fact that he does indeed wants to wash the filth of his body but he can’t find one, certain that his body isn’t betraying him. Maybe it’s his eyes, from the way his handler is trying to meet his gaze. The Soldier doesn’t cower under that look, tries to keep up the charade that his handler is trying to burn his way through.

“You should take a shower.” His handler says and it’s enough of a suggestion that the Soldier can regard it as an order and permission. The Soldier gives a short nod to signal that he understood the order and starts pulling off the borrowed clothes from his torso. They don’t have room for his usual arsenal and he strips within a matter of seconds, folding the fabric neatly and putting it next to his boots on the floor.

“Woah! Hey!” His handler suddenly protests, and the urgency in his voice has the Soldier straighten up, his pants half folded in his hands as he tries to guess his handler’s wishes through the vagueness of his outburst.

“Don’t-“ The handler starts, his cheeks turning an angry shade red and the Soldier’s metal fingers clutches the fabric involuntary. He doesn’t know what he did but he’s obviously angered his handler, blood rising to his face in fury and he’ll probably get that punishment sooner rather than later now. He desperately wants to ask what he did, can only hope that his handler will explain it so he gets a chance to not do it again. He doesn’t think that there is a wrong way to prepare for a shower, going in there with the clothes still on would defeat the purpose. He’d do it if his handler told him to of course, but he _hadn’t_ and the Soldier couldn’t be expected to know something like that without explanation, could he? (Of course he could, he was thinking too much – the order had been to take a shower, it hadn’t been to remove clothing and _then_ take a shower.)

“You can change in the bathroom.” The handler finished, eyes suddenly fixed on the ground between his boots as if there was something very interesting on the floor there and the gentleness of his tone surprised the Soldier so much that it took him a few seconds to realize that he wasn’t getting punished. Or maybe the punishment would come after he had showered. In any case, he blinked a few times, watching as the red on his handler’s cheeks only spread further. It wasn’t blood rising from anger, the Soldier realized, it was something else.

It was pretty.

The Soldier had no idea where that thought came from. It wasn’t analytical or practical, it wasn’t even a useful observation. It was dangerous territory and he quickly turned his face so that his handler wouldn’t be able to read anything suspicious from his face. He wasn’t allowed to make judgement-calls like that, pretty or not it didn’t matter for a weapon. It didn’t matter to him.

He took the opportunity to follow his handler’s orders and moved into the bathroom as directed, relieved and nervous at the same time because his punishment had yet to come. He didn’t see how it was practical to have him wash up before said punishment (he didn’t doubt that it would be a bloody one, his handler was too strong _not_ to make him bleed) but again, it wasn’t his place to question a handler. The handler always knows best. It was why he they had remade him, why they conditioned him and worked so hard to help him become the weapon he was meant to be.

The Soldier made sure to keep his front turned toward his handler as he crossed the small room toward the bathroom, unwilling to expose the torn flesh of his backside that made him vulnerable. His handler knew about the punishment he’d received, there was no reason to expose his back and give the man the perfect idea of where to start to make the most damage.

The Soldier _was not afraid of pain_.

He removes the rest of his clothing, leaving the door open into the bedroom because he knows better than to try and close it. His handler hadn’t stopped him from undressing after all, only from doing it in his vicinity. Maybe his new handler didn’t want to have to be subjected to looking at the angry red canvas of his back, drops of liquid and blood mixing whenever he stretched a bit too much this or that way, angering the flesh as it tried to knit itself back together. It seemed like a likely explanation for why his handler would look away from him so quickly as he started removing his clothes.

When he steps in front of the shower he is faced with a dilemma that has him standing in the glass cubical for almost three full minutes. The dial on the shower is pre-set to a warm temperature, hot enough that the room will probably steam up even during a short shower and work the knots in his muscles lose and he is tempted to just turn the water on, step under the spray and enjoy the unimaginable luxury of a warm shower.

But he isn’t allowed warm water. He is barely even allowed showers, doesn’t clearly remember the last time he was in one. He is a weapon and weapons doesn’t need long hot showers. Weapons gets washed off with hoses, hard pressure efficiently wiping away grime and dirt so that they can be put back on their shelves. He shouldn’t even want a warm shower, the temperature of the water shouldn’t matter to him one way or the other.

On the other hand his frayed nerves makes bracing himself for an ice-cold shower even harder than it normally is. The metal fingers of his left hand are already twitching (malfunctioning, he is so imperfect, can’t even control _fingers_ ) the way they do when the surge of feelings gets too much for him to handle.

He doesn’t have feelings, he is a weapon.

The thought of gritting his teeth through a cold shower feels like a double punishment and he knows that he has a lot of mistakes to answer for but he finds himself wishing for any other form of punishment. Anything, as long as it doesn’t include having to stand under the spray of cold.

A small rebellious part of him reasons that if he is about to be punished by the hands of his new handler, so much stronger than any he’s ever had before, then an additional punishment will be worth a few minutes of warm water.

His fingers turns the dial and makes it lukewarm, a rebellious compromise that he might be able to get away with. The water can’t be described as warm, but it doesn’t make the hairs on his arms stand on end and it doesn’t make his left shoulder pulse and ache the way it always does when he feels cold. It’s alright, he can allow himself this indulgence before he gets punished and put back into the chair and wiped again.

Then he remembers that his handler’s hands are still stained with blood from the last people he punished for disobedience, and those were agents. People with real value, who were allowed some lenience. They hadn’t been weapons yet their cries echoed through the Soldier’s memory. If that was how his handler punished his allies how would he punish _him_?

He immediately turns the dial on the shower until the number is as low as it will possibly go before he can even make a conscious decision to move his hand. He forces his feet to stay still on the tiled floor even though he wants to move them, get as far away from the chilly drops of water as he possibly can. The cold temperature _hurts_ , makes its way inside him like the spray touches his internal organs as well.

“Use the shampoo and the soap on the shelf.” His handler’s voice sounds through the walls and the spray of water. The tone of his voice isn’t malicious at all, but the order sends another shiver through the Soldier’s body. It is a fitting start to his punishment, he thinks. He should have expected no less from his handler, who has already proven that while he might be inexperienced he is a good strategist.

He reaches for the bottle of shampoo and rubs it into his hair. The first time a glob of the clean-smelling substance falls on his shoulder and starts trickling down to his raw back he manages to keep from flinching. It stings as the shampoo comes in contact with his wounds but it’s manageable, until he leans his head into the spray completely to rinse it out from his hair. It burns as it makes its way into every not yet healed crevice of his back and keeping his feet rooted in the same spot starts feeling impossible. He closes his eyes against the pain, tries to breathe through the burning and stinging as he runs his hands through his hair, fingers on both hands shaking slightly.

The soap burns worse, especially when he brings his flesh hand over his back to rub it in and to make sure he cleans himself properly everywhere. He has to stop halfway through, lean his left hand against the wall and brace himself as he folds over his stomach, the sudden urge to vomit overwhelming him. A small whine escapes his lips before he can stop himself but he doesn’t think his handler heard him over the sound of running water. Small mercies. He wants his handler to believe that he is strong and capable, that he has control over his body and that he doesn’t need to be sent into the chair just yet.

His shoulder starts to ache from the cold when he rinses the burning soap of his body. He feels like his entire shoulder is throbbing even though he knows that that’s not possible because the metal of his arm doesn’t have a pulse or the ability to feel pain. It’s one of the reasons for why he hates being cold, the way his body starts acting like it’s in more pain that it’s actually experiencing and he feels like there is something he should remember whenever the cold starts to really seep into his bones like that. He remembers what his handler deems necessary and there is nothing else to it. Trying to pull at threads like that always sends him into the chair quicker than usual and while the Soldier isn’t afraid of pain he _is_ afraid of the chair and that kind of pain.

“There are clean clothes for you in the door.” His handler says once he turns the water off and steps out of the shower. The Soldier locates them and puts them on, sweatpants that are soft to the touch and a t-shirt that clings to the wounds on his back but he can’t do anything about it if his handler wants him to wear it. Once he is dressed he the Soldier takes a deep breath, lets it fill him and make him brave despite the way his stomach feels like it’s going to try and turn itself inside out.

He doesn’t fear pain. Whatever punishment he is going to receive he will take it and he will do his best to remain strong.

“I am ready to receive my punishment, sir.” The Soldier says, stepping through back into the bedroom before he is tempted to hide in the small space between the shower-wall and the toilet or something equally undignified.

 

 

**Sunday, 1.35 AM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4**

Steve is pacing with such intensity that he might actually leave marks on the floor. He’s explained three times now that he isn’t going to hurt the Soldier, but instead of being relieved the other man just grows more tense each time Steve says the words.

“What would I even punish you _for_?” Steve asks, battling his frustration as the Soldier winces a bit at the harshness of his voice. He wants to punch something, the adrenaline from earlier still not completely out of his system and he wishes that the Soldier’s previous handlers weren’t all dead so that he could take out his frustration on them. On the people who took the happy man from that tape and made him into this. Higher purpose or not, no one should be made to look the way the Soldier is now.

The other man is still dripping wet from the shower, the fabric of Steve’s shirt on him clinging to the outline of every muscle on his torso like he hadn’t even looked at a towel before pulling it on. He probably didn’t even wring his hair out with his hands either, strands of it sticking to his face and dripping even more moisture into the shirt. Steve wants to wrap him up in a mountain of soft towels, or at least pull the hair out of the man’s face but the Soldier obviously doesn’t like being touched so he doesn’t.

The metal arm emits a few clicking noises as the plates shifts but the Soldier doesn’t look like he’s even aware that his hand made a small movement. The Soldier looks lost at the question, unable to keep his eyes fixed on one point as they flutter from Steve to the floor and back.

“For disobeying.” The Soldier answers slowly, voice soft and a bit unsteady. Steve watches the man bite his jaw shut with concentration like he’s trying to keep from shivering.

“Yeah but-“ Steve starts, frowning because he’s trying to remember when the Soldier disobeyed him on their mission. He can’t think of one instance where the Soldier wasn’t exactly that – a model soldier following his orders and helping him finish the mission. “You didn’t.” It sounds like a question even though he didn’t mean for it to.

“I interfered when I shouldn’t have.” The Soldier elaborated, anticipation of pain a clear undercurrent in his voice.

It takes Steve a minute of recapping the mission to understand what the Soldier is talking about. To understand that he is referring to when he stepped in front of the gun pointed at him and trying to fight agent Harris to protect him.

“You were just trying to protect me.” Steve argued, because he still didn’t see how that would warrant a punishment.

“You didn’t want me to.” The Soldier offered, sounding a bit more sure of himself now but Steve wasn’t sure he thought that was an improvement.

“That’s-“ Steve frowned. “You couldn’t have known that.” Because there was no way the Soldier could have known that Steve needed to fight the agents himself. Hell, Steve didn’t even realize that he had to be the one to prove himself until the Soldier had stepped in and tried to defend him.

The Soldier remained silent at that, but it was obvious that it wasn’t from acceptance.

“I’m not going to punish you for trying to protect me.” Steve pressed. The Soldier looked like he wanted to argue, but was stuck between wanting to argue and not wanting to disobey. The fingers of his left hand twitching a little again, Steve observed and realized that it was kind of a tell for when the other man got anxious about something.

“If you hadn’t interfered and Harris had managed to kill me you’d be punished for letting your handler die, right?” Steve asked, deciding to change his strategy.

“Yes.” The Soldier answered to the question without hesitation like he was relieved to get a question that he could actually answer.

“Which means that trying to protect me was the right call, doesn’t it?” Steve coaxed. That didn’t have the desired effect though, instead it just deepened the Soldier’s frown, teeth coming up to bite at his bottom lip like he wanted to say something but was trying to hold himself back from uttering the words. The man nodded shortly, but it was obvious to Steve that it was far from real acceptance. Most likely he did what Steve thought he wanted to so that he wouldn’t get in trouble.

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you.” Steve said, like maybe if he said the words enough times the Soldier would accept them. It was as good a strategy as any he’d tried before. “If you don’t agree with me, you can tell me.” He took a few steps closer to the Soldier, hands open and by his side in a hopefully non-threatening gesture.

The Soldier made no indication he’d even heard Steve so the problem was obviously not that he disagreed with the point Steve was trying to make.

“You can ask me anything.” He tried instead, because he could practically see how hard the Soldier was thinking.

That had the Soldier biting his lip a little harder and Steve suspected he’d stumbled over what was bothering the other man. He wanted to ask Steve something but he wasn’t sure he was allowed, or how the question would be received. It seemed counterproductive that HYDRA would discourage the Soldier from asking questions though – the risk of screwing up a mission increased greatly if the Soldier was too scared to ask for things. Communication was one of the most important things in the field and Steve was going to make sure he changed that part of the Soldier’s conditioning. He wanted the man to be able to trust him and work with him as a partner and the foundation of that was trust.

“Ask me.” He coaxed the Soldier, his body language shifting slightly to hunch his shoulders a bit to make him seem less dominating. He was still taller than the Soldier but the other man picked up on the shift, leaning back a bit in what might have been a subconscious move to own the ground that Steve had just conceded.

The Soldier was obviously fighting an inner battle with himself, throat working as he swallows more times than strictly necessary for the human body in the span of a few minutes. Otherwise his face wouldn’t betray anything, blank mask like the man wasn’t thinking at all, doing his best impression of a toy soldier. The blank face was more of a tell than anything though, revealing that the Soldier had to keep himself in check as to not reveal whatever he was thinking because he doesn’t think that Steve is going to like whatever it is.

“Is this a test?” The man finally said, eyes flicking up to Steve’s face searching for the man’s reaction before immediately turning back to the floor like he realized it was forbidden. It didn’t exactly surprise Steve to think that the Soldier’s previous handlers had set rules about how the Soldier wasn’t allowed to look them in the eye.

“It’s not a test.” Steve said firmly and hoped it sounded convincing enough to make the Soldier believe him. He wasn’t exactly sure what the ‘this’ that the Soldier refers to was, but he sure as hell wasn’t testing the Soldier in any way, setting him up to fail just so he could deliver some kind of cruel punishment the way the Soldier seemed to suspect.

The Soldier remained quiet for a few moments, so very unlike the man Steve had seen in the field or in the gym. He looked so vulnerable that Steve couldn’t help but reach out to touch the man, forgetting completely how the other would always shy away from his touch like it burned him. The Soldier did cringe at the contact, swaying a bit on his feet as he struggled to stand still and accept the touch and Steve’s heart ached with the realization that the Soldier thought his touch would mean pain, punishment, despite his many reassurances.

But that wasn’t what Steve took the most note of. His attention was drawn to where his hand rested, on the juncture of the Soldier’s neck and shoulder, his thumb brushing the man’s cool skin and palm feeling the firmness of the metal arm under the fabric of the t-shirt.

His too cool skin.

A small drop of cold water dripped onto the back of Steve’s hand, originating from the Soldier’s hair and it definitely shouldn’t have had that temperature if the Soldier had had a warm shower. The kind of pleasant, hot soaking that any sane man would crave after a mission like the one they’d just had.

“Did you use any hot water?” Steve asked, frowning as the watched the Soldier closely. Not that the man wasn’t allowed to shower at any temperature he wanted, hot or cold, of course he was, but a nagging suspicion told Steve that that might be the problem. That the Soldier did not in fact know that he was allowed such a basic luxury.

The Soldier didn’t hesitate to answer this time.

“No.” He said, a note of pride in his voice and Steve felt some of the tension release from the man’s shoulder through the hand still connecting them. The breath the man released, discreetly but not discreetly enough for it to go unnoticed, made Steve frown even harder.

“No, you don’t…” He started, but stopped because frustration made it impossible to express himself clearly. “None of this is a test.” He tried again, because the Soldier didn’t seem to get that. It was obvious now in hindsight that the man had thought being sent into the shower without supervision and clear instructions was a test to see if he’d take advantage of Steve’s negligence. Steve kind of wished that the Soldier _had_ taken advantage because then the man’s lips wouldn’t be a shade of bluer than they naturally were. It would also prove that he hadn’t been treated as terribly as Steve suspected in his years of service to HYDRA.

“Get back into the shower.” Steve said when the Soldier didn’t look like he understood the point Steve was trying to drive home at all. He did know how to follow orders though of course, walking back into the small bathroom with stiff shoulders.

Steve pulled his hand from the Soldier’s shoulder and followed the man inside, he obviously needed to supervise if he was going to make sure that the Solider got the kind of reward the man deserved for executing the mission perfectly. Steve was mentally trying to calm his body and it’s responses to seeing the Soldier’s muscled torso revealed again as the man started to remove his clothing a third time. But the hard lines and raw strength that rolled of the man was impossible to ignore and Steve had to bite the inside of his lip to distract himself. The Soldier might be gorgeous but it was inappropriate and bordering on creepy of Steve to look at him in that way when the man was in such a vulnerable position.

But any trouble Steve had with keeping his thoughts pure vanished as soon as the Soldier turned his torso slightly, red flashing in the corner of Steve’s eyes despite the fact that he was trying very hard not to look to closely at the other man. His head snapped back up as the Soldier was maneuvering himself into the shower and very deliberately keeping his back turned away from Steve. He hadn’t had the time to see much but it was obvious that the man had irritated wounds on his back.

“What are those?” Steve asked, sounding mildly horrified.

The Soldier looked at Steve like he was considering the man’s question for a few seconds, nervousness creeping into his features as he realized he didn’t know how to answer Steve’s question.

“Your back.” Steve clarified, his response making the Soldier’s eyebrows draw together in confusion.

“Turn around.” Steve said, his voice soft but obviously an order. The Soldier didn’t hesitate to obey though the readiness with which the other man exposed his shoulder made Steve cringe has he saw the extent of the injuries. Long gashes obviously made from a whip where scattered all over the Soldier’s back, most of them healed up thanks to the serum but enough of them remained that Steve imagined the other man had to be in pain. The fact that the rest of the lashes where starting to scar told the story of how deep the remaining one’s had to have been to still be open like this.

The edges of the gashes were red and would undoubtedly be warm to the touch, irritated and swollen at certain patches. Dirty lake-water and a shower with burning soaps probably hadn’t done anything to help with that. A normal human would have needed alcohol to clean the wounds lest they become infected and life-threatening, but Steve was glad for the serum running through the Soldier’s veins because it meant that he wouldn’t need to put the man through that kind of painful procedure.

“When…” Steve started, but his brain supplied him with the information before he could form a question for the Soldier. The last time the other man had been punished had obviously been at the same time Steve had, when they came back from Canada. It made his stomach turn to think how many lashes must have been delivered on the Soldier’s back for the man to still have open wounds. Steve had gotten over a hundred lashes and his were all healed up, slight scarring that would be faded by the end of the week the only proof that his skin had even been broken.

“I’m sorry.” Steve said, not hesitating to meet the Soldier’s eye as the man’s head whipped around to look at Steve over his shoulder at his words. “I wouldn’t have told you to shower if I’d known about this.” He continued, fighting the urge to go ahead and just empty the content of his stomach into the toilet next to him. This wasn’t about him and his guilt, this was about the Soldier and how Steve had yet again failed him by not being attentive enough. How could he not have noticed that his supposed partner was injured like this? “I wouldn’t have taken you on the mission if I’d known about that.”

The last part made the Soldier flinch, like Steve’s words had been another blow to his back and Steve wanted to kick himself at the look of failure in the Soldier’s eyes before the man turned his face away again. There was so many things about the Soldier’s behavior that Steve didn’t understand.

“Hey, why are you upset?” Steve asked, keeping his distance from the Soldier even though he wanted to get closer and offer the man comfort. He had a feeling the Soldier wouldn’t see Steve invading his space from behind, wounds and flesh exposed, as comforting though.

He could see the Soldier swallow as the man considered his answer, shoulders rising and falling with a long shaky breath as the man still didn’t turn around to face Steve. Just standing like that, back turned and an obvious weakness exposed for Steve to exploit however he wanted, because he’d been ordered to.

“M’ sorry.” The Soldier said, voice barely audible even in the small bathroom. “Sir.” The man added, slightly louder a second later and Steve grimaced at being called that. He hadn’t failed to pick up on how the Soldier would forget or omit to call him sir whenever the other man felt comfortable around him, but always tacked it on like he was begging to be spared pain when he was sure he had done something that would make Steve punish him.

“Sorry for what?” Steve asked, feeling a bit like his life had been reduced to asking the Soldier that question several times over.

“For endangering the mission by not informing you the extent of my damages, sir.” The Soldier answered.

Steve was going to explain to the Soldier how that wasn’t his main concern at all. But then he thought of something. “Why didn’t you?” He asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“So you wouldn’t punish me, sir.” The Soldier confessed.

“You think I’d punish you if you were too hurt to go on a mission?” Steve asked, needing to hear the Soldier say it because it sounded like such a stretch, even within the bounds of HYDRA’s rigorous training. The way the Soldier simply nodded weakly told Steve that not only was that what the man had expected, but most likely that was something that had happened with previous handlers.

“That’s just… dumb.” Steve settled on, not the most eloquent he’d ever been but that kind of twisted logic really didn’t deserve more.

“Turn around.” Steve told the Soldier, taking a step closer when the man was facing him again. “From now on, if you’re hurt or in pain I want to know about it. Even if it’s just something minor.” Steve said with as much authority in his voice as he could muster.

“Yes sir.” The Soldier answered dutifully, but from the way he sucked part of the bottom lip into his mouth to chew at it a bit Steve could tell the man wanted to say more.

“And you can always ask me questions. No matter what, I won’t ever punish you for asking me something.” He promised, hoping that the sincerity in his voice wouldn’t be lost on the Soldier.

A few moments of hesitation followed until the Soldier turned his head up a bit, not quite looking Steve in the eye but no longer as submissive as he’d previously been. “Why?” The Soldier asked.

“Why do I want to know if you’re injured?” Steve said, asking for clarification.

The Soldier nodded, shoulders tensing a bit like he was bracing for the blow that he was expecting would come from questioning his superior.

“Because my job as your handler is to take care of you. I can’t do that if I don’t know if you’re hurt or not.” Steve said, hoping that the explanation would appeal to the logic side of the Soldier and resonate on a level of something that was required for mission-efficiency at least. “And because I want to know.” He couldn’t help but add, because he had always been a bleeding heart. “I don’t want you to be in pain, Soldier. You don’t deserve that.”

The sudden emotion rising in the Soldier’s eyes at the statement made Steve blush again. The hope sparkling in the man’s eyes made Steve follow a hunch, stepping closer to make sure the Soldier would meet his eyes.

“You’re not getting punished. You did good today Soldier.” The other man’s lips curved into a hesitant smile at the praise and it made Steve beam to finally get a positive reaction from the Soldier.

At a loss of how to continue the conversation Steve went to dig out the warmest set of clothes he owned. Another shower was no longer an option, the hot temperature would no doubt be burning and unpleasant on the open wounds on the Soldier’s back and warm clothes was the second best Steve could think of to get the man’s temperature back up. Handing the bundle of a hoodie and warm sweats over to the Soldier.

 

 

**Sunday, Later, the Winter Soldier, Location classified, Base 4**

Being sent away from his handler’s room felt like punishment. The warm clothes still covering him like armor been a reward, the Soldier was certain of that although he couldn’t recall if he’d ever been rewarded before. It was highly unlikely, weapons didn’t need rewards after all, only maintenance and ammo and orders. Rewards were given to people, to Agents and Captains who had done their job well. But here he was anyway, carrying his handler’s clothes on his body like he was wrapped in the reward. It was unsettling how the fabric made him feel safe, as if he was wearing his tactical gear and bulletproof vest going into a hailstorm of bullets, even though he knew that the fabric wouldn’t be able to protect him from anything more than a temperature-drop of a degree or two.

He was being led back to his cell to rest, having received no punishment and even been permitted to wash blood and dirt out of his hair. His new handler was even more different than the Soldier had initially estimated, and he found that knowledge equally frightening and pleasant. This new handler was unpredictable, but that had yet to turn out to be something negative.

 

 


	16. the Deliverance of Karma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the name of a character that appeared in a previous chapter, in case you get confused! I previously had a character named Agent Grant, Hydra Agent with a bit of a crush on Steve - he has now been renamed Scott Lang because I watched Civil War again the other day and I really don't like Ant-man haha.

**Sunday, 11.45 AM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, the Gym**

Steve ducked a blow to the head with ease, using his shoulder and more of his strength than was definitely necessary to tackle his opponent onto the ground. It _had_ to hurt and usually when sparring with people who weren’t injected with the super-serum (Brock Rumlow excluded of course) Steve felt bad for using any more force than was strictly necessary. In this instance though, he had to fight to hold back a grin as the man beneath him grunted as he rolled to the side when Steve allowed him. The two parted again and Steve raised a challenging eyebrow, egging the other man on to come at him again.

It hadn’t been hard to get a hold of the name of the man who had been responsible for carrying out the lashing that had ripped the Soldier’s back open. In fact, it had been satisfyingly easy. He’d made an inquiry with the Artificial Intelligence, since the Soldier said he didn’t know the name of the man himself, and the voice of Zola was very happy to help. Steve was pretty certain that the AI wasn’t supposed to give out that kind of information to anyone simply because they asked but a brief discussion with the AI made Steve and the thing thick as thieves. The AI had started the conversation by informing Steve that he refused to send a gift basket to that _particular agent_ and Steve couldn’t help but pick up on the fact that the computer-program managed to sound like he disapproved of the man. When Steve had followed the hunch and revealed that he wanted to make the man cry, not give him a gift basket, the AI had perked up enough that the lights in Steve’s room started blinking for a few seconds. Listening to the voice of Zola rant on how Mark Turner should never have been let on the site because his mother was Jewish for fifteen minutes was a cheap price to pay if it meant Steve would be able to give back a fraction of the pain that the man had caused the Soldier.

After that, getting agent Turner to spar with him had been easy. Most people had jumped at a chance to test their abilities against the serum-infused protégé before Steve had been awarded the honor of become the Winter Soldier’s handler. Now it seemed like it was on top of everyone’s Christmas-list. Steve had invited a few other agents as well, just so it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone that he was singling out agent Turner specifically and those who didn’t duel with him were crammed into the gym to watch.

Steve had taken a few more hits than he would have if his head had been completely in the game since they started, mostly because his main focus had been on the Soldier. The man was watching from a corner, his guards cutting off the immediate area to make sure the rest of the agents were keeping a safe distance. The man was wearing his combat clothes again, all thick leather straps and black cargo pants, complete with the mask to cover most of his face. And he looked to be more focused on the fight in front of him than Steve was, eyes tracking the movements even though his face didn’t betray what he might be feeling. But Steve was pretty sure that the man’s eyes had gone a little slimmer than usual when he took the first hit, the Soldier’s shoulder tensing just a little bit.

Then it had been agent Turner’s turn to take his place opposite Steve and the metal fingers on the Soldier’s left had had definitely been twitching in recognition of the other agent. Steve hadn’t gone soft on the man like he had on the agents before him and he was pretty sure the Soldier noticed the change.

Turner had started out excited, a cocky grin on his face that promised Steve he wouldn’t be as easy of an opponent as agents before him. He had this way about him that let you know that he was used to making people scream and Steve barely resisted using enough force to break the man’s jaw with the first punch. It wasn’t like Turner had held himself back when he was whipping the Soldier’s back into shreds, he didn’t deserve Steve to go easy on him. But it was even more satisfying to punch the man several times than just the one, so Steve managed to hold back on anything that would permanently break the agent.

Turner was a good fighter, strong and with impeccable technique but he appeared a bit rusty in single-combat. Maybe someone had picked up on the more sadistic side of the man and pointed him into the direction of torture – that would explain why he had been assigned to punish the Soldier. With the other agents Steve had let the matches be pretty even. He’d taken a hit or two, slowed his tempo down to make it more of a game than an actual fight and turning it into a learning opportunity for both parties and the audience, but with Turner it was different. The other agent took notice of Steve’s change in attitude pretty soon, confusion as to why Steve seemed to have a grudge against him written all over his face as he was forced to go on the defense when Steve stepped up the game a bit more, feeling like a shark that smelled blood.

“Hey man!” The agent exclaimed in protest as Steve drew first blood, knuckles ripping a split in his eyebrow. Steve spared a glance at the Soldier and found the other man looking back at him, meeting his eyes with that intensity that had Steve dying to know what he was thinking. Agent Turner lashed out in an attempt to save face in front of the crowd, but his eyes followed Steve’s when Steve dodged the blow, still distracted by the Soldier and thus failing to counter-attack when Turner was vulnerable.

Steve had to give it to Turner, the man wasn’t dumb. His face was twisted into a grim expression, fear flashing in his eyes for a second as he realized that Steve had a personal reason for wanting to see him bleed. And he also realized that a few punches and three drops of blood wasn’t going to cut it as payment for what Turner had done to the Winter Soldier. Steve turned his full attention back to the agent with what was probably a feral grin in response to the man’s haunted expression and proceeded to _really_ fight the man.

Steve felt no remorse as he finished their match by taking out the knee that Turner had already injured with a kick, sending the man down on the mat with a cry. It didn’t take a medical expert to know that he wouldn’t be on active duty again in weeks until the leg could heal enough for him to get full function back. It wasn’t like he’d held anything back when he’d ripped open the Soldier’s back, and if the Soldier hadn’t been enhanced with the serum he would have died from his wounds. Hell, Steve probably wouldn’t even have been able to go on a mission if he’d been hurt like that. The man deserved every minute of pain he was in.

The display of violence left the room quiet except for the pair of agents who came to help agent Turner as the man went down for the count, and Steve wanted to squirm as he realized that all of the attention was turned on him. He hadn’t really thought the whole thing through and in hindsight maybe it wasn’t a great strategical move to kick Turner’s ass so publicly, even if it made sense to do it under the guise of friendly sparring. He probably shouldn’t have gone at him quite so hard.

Then the tension was suddenly broken by an impressed whistle.

“That was really something Rogers.” Scott Lang’s familiar voice carried from across the gym and Steve hadn’t even noticed that he was in the audience but he was grateful for it now.

“Pain is how we learn.” Steve said, repeating one of HYDRA’s favorite mottos and it immediately gained him sympathy from the other agents, heads nodding in muted agreement.

“Turner sure learned a good lesson.” Scott said, and the way he said it made Steve frown a bit. He was obviously implying something he didn’t say out loud, and the way his eyes searched for Steve’s made it seem like he was letting Steve know he was keeping his secret. Not that Steve could read the man’s mind. It made him uneasy to not know what agent Lang thought he knew or might have realized and Steve made a point to talk to the man. Steve didn’t exactly have friends at the base, but Scott was the closest thing to it even with the crush that never seemed to go away that he had on Steve.

 

 

**Sunday, 07.26 PM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4, Commander Pierce’s office**

 “That was some performance yesterday, agent Rogers. Bringing agents Harris and Banks in for public discipline, I must say I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Thank you sir.” Steve said, not quite comfortable with being complimented for killing members of his own unit but well aware that the Commander would think less of him if he acted like he didn’t want the praise. And he did fill with pride at the rest of the praise. Price was the highest rankest man on the base and he was not the kind of man who showered praise over his subordinates. When he said it the words had real power behind them.

“Agent Turner however-“ Pierce started, suddenly not looking so pleased anymore.

“Was an accident. I completely forgot his knee was already injured and I misjudged by own strength.” Steve cut in quickly, before the Commander could elaborate and make Steve more nervous by staring at him accusingly.

“I’m sure.” Pierce conceded, clearly not convinced but he didn’t press the issue but the lingering look he gave Steve was enough to let Steve know that he wasn’t going to forget about the incident either, and that he didn’t condone Steve hurting agents enough to take them out of the game.

“Your next target is a professor at Culver University.” Pierce explained once he seemed satisfied that Steve understood the threat of severe punishment if the offence was repeated and pushed a folder across his desk to Steve.

“That’s another one of the names agent Allard gave us.” Steve stated, happy to change the subject, picking the file up and scanning the first page. “No previous documented connection to Hydra?” He asked after skimming it through.

“No, and we do not believe he would be very sympathetic to our cause either. However he is a devout believer in the tales of Norse Mythology, and he studies the occult and the theory of trans-universal-travels and the theories of parallel worlds. Which is why we believe he was contacted by the traitors in our midst.” Pierce explained. “We wouldn’t usually concern ourselves with someone like him, but we can’t know how much he knows about HYDRA. If he knows about the organization and especially of the existence of the our asset-“

“The asset that Allard wanted so badly for the supposed God?”

“Yes, that’s the one. If the professor knows about the existence of it he will surely seek to steal it another way and we can’t risk any lose strings when it comes to this, agent Rogers.” The seriousness of the situation was written all over the Commander’s face and Steve nodded.

“When do we leave?” He asked, fighting the urge to jump up and down at the prospect of going on another mission with the Winter Soldier.

 

 

**Wednesday, 10.00 AM, Steve Rogers, Location classified, Base 4**

They aren’t scheduled to leave for the next mission for three days. Steve fills the first one with rigorous workouts and attempts at conversations with the Soldier but the man is still as blank as ever like he will run out of words if he says too many of them. Occasionally a spark of the man’s personality will shine through, like when he’d watched Steve do pushups for an hour without breaking into a sweat and left his spot in the corner of the gym to put his booted foot down on Steve’s back and making him push up against the resistance, smiling behind his mask so broadly that it even reached his eyes as Steve set his jaw and kept the routine up until he was physically unable to lift himself up again. The Soldier had helped him off the floor after that, and Steve had made sure to feed the Soldier every time his own stomach cried for sustenance.

Apparently the Soldier’s body couldn’t quite digest normal food, a side effect from his rounds in an out of cryo, and his body was regularly maintained with IV-nutrition and fluids but he could also handle the supersoldier-meal-bars. The look of surprise and disbelief in the Soldier’s eyes every time he was offered food that he had no emergent need of hadn’t entirely disappeared, but by the third day it was considerably more short-lived than before and Steve didn’t even have to order the man to remove his mask in order to eat. Steve had preferred that the mask stayed off permanently of course, but a quick flash of fear had flickered through the Soldier’s eyes both times Steve had suggested he take it off when it wasn’t completely necessary and Steve didn’t want to cause the man distress by upsetting too many of the rules that had been established for the Soldier at once, since going against the man’s usual protocol made the Soldier react with everything from nervousness to near panic depending on the specific issue.

On the second day agent Lang had sought Steve out to give him a status rapport on agent Turner – the man wouldn’t suffer any permanent damages to his knee although his pride might not survive the three weeks of leave he got, and Steve had certainly earned himself a new reputation. Apparently people were calling him a hero for saving Rumlow’s team. Steve had shrugged at the revelation and didn’t bother correcting Scott to let the man know that Rumlow and the other agents had been the last thing on his mind as he went to save the Soldier. Don’t get him wrong, of course it had been a good thing to get his fellow agents back safely but that hadn’t been the primary focus and Steve wasn’t one for lying to himself. But Agent Lang didn’t need to know that.

During the meeting with Lang the Soldier had been taken for maintenance, the specifics of which Steve apparently didn’t have high enough clearance for despite being the man’s handler and Steve had been unable to pay full attention to his fellow agent, his mind wandering to the Soldier constantly. Was the man alright? His back was starting to look fine, the open wounds on his back closing under Steve’s constant supervision. Steve had offered to treat the wounds with salves from the infirmary to speed up the healing process but even though the Soldier obviously wouldn’t outright argue with him it was clear from the way he’d tensed up that he’d prefer not to be touched to Steve had dropped the issue quickly. But he couldn’t help worrying about the Soldier’s health. Had he been out of Cryo for too long? Was that why he had to go in, had Steve missed any signs that the Soldier was suffering?

That evening the Soldier had been returned to his handler, looking exactly the same as when the guards had walked him away a few hours ago. Steve had asked about the maintenance, of course he had, but it was like the Soldier didn’t hear even hear the question which was unusual because the Soldier would never just ignore Steve. But the blank expression on his face had Steve assuming that he’d been wiped off what the maintenance entailed. Maybe there had been painful medical procedures and he’d been put under and that’s why couldn’t tell Steve what had happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: A behind the scenes where we'll get to know exactly what the Soldier's maintenance entailed, and then a mission to Culver University. Who do we know in the Marvel Universe over there? ;)
> 
> I apologize for the short chapter, but it'll but this was really the best place to make a break at.


	17. Bonus-chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm experimentering with shorter chapters for now to keep my motivation up, hopefully it'll get me posting more often!
> 
> Also, major warning for Non-con in this chapter.

 

**Tuesday, 03.00 PM, Alexander Pierce, Location classified, Base 4, Commander Pierce’s office**

The asset stood tall in front of Pierce as the man ordered him to do so, no hesitation in the way he followed the command, his breathing shallow as to not move his chest and shoulders too much. The next order to drop to his knees was obeyed just as quickly and two hours later the Winter Soldier still hadn’t moved a muscle, staying on the floor like a piece of furniture while the Commander shuffled through mind-numbing paperwork. Just as the two hour mark hit his erection was becoming persistent enough to distract him from his work and he decided that a break was in order.

The smallest indication with two fingers had the Soldier get into position and the Commander didn’t hold back his groan of contentment as the Soldier opened his mouth, eyes blank and body still as he waited to let Pierce use him however he liked. The Commander didn’t waste any time in getting his cock out and letting the head of it rub across the Soldier’s tongue as he stood above him, one hand on the base of his dick and the other braced on his desk behind the Soldier.

He had to tread lightly with agent Rogers, that much was clear to the Commander. The young agent showed much promise but he was rash and impulsive and had more morals than anyone the Commander had met in years. And he had a soft spot for the Soldier which Pierce could smell a mile away, which was not inherently a bad thing – the stronger the bond between the Soldier and its handler the better the Asset performed. But that bond usually consisted of fear, programming and conditioning and there was really no telling what might come of this evolving relationship between super-soldiers. But even so the Commander was set on using it to his advantage. By subtle manipulations he would turn the team into the best weapon HYDRA had yet to see. However that meant that for now he couldn’t make too much use of the Soldier’s other talents as much as he would want to and it was physically pained the Commander to know have the Soldier out of Cryo without enough opportunities for his favorite activity.

Pierce pulled his cock out of the Soldier’s mouth, tracing the head of it around the man’s lips before pushing in again, going deeper this time. As usual he met no resistance as the Soldier readjusted his breathing to only come through his nose as his entire mouth filled up with Pierce’s cock.

As he slid his cock even further into the Soldier’s mouth he thought back on the interrogation he’d started their meeting with. The Soldier had claimed that Rogers didn’t punish it, which was troubling indeed. The Soldier had had handlers who were too soft on it and those had been dealt with quickly, but agent Rogers wasn’t just someone who could be swept under the rug. He had too much potential, and it had been a gamble to give him the Soldier but it had paid off in ways the Commander couldn’t even have expected. Rogers had to be punished for going against orders of course, but him stealing an aircraft and going off on a mission to become a hero in the eyes of his peers had been one of the best things to happen in Pierce’s life as Commander. Not only had he not lost the Winter Soldier (it would have been his ass on the line had the Asset not been recovered) but he had exposed a group of traitors which would have gone unnoticed for god knows how long otherwise.

But as agent Rogers looked more and more like HYDRA’s golden boy and most promising investment, Agent Turner’s unfortunate incident had made the Commander suspicious at first. He’d been the one supervising the Soldier’s punishment for failing the mission with agent Allard, and he’d watched Turner paint the concrete floor red with the super-soldier’s blood. After that he’d purposefully kept the identity of the man from agent Rogers, hoping to avoid this particular scenario. But when he’d asked Zola the IA had said that agent Rogers still had no idea who had been responsible for the Soldier’s injuries and that an analysis of the surveillance-tape from the gym showed that the incident had indeed been an accident. It calmed the Commander’s nerves, but he was still hesitant to trust the young handler all the way. He would have to find a way to make sure that the man was ultimately loyal to HYDRA before he got too attached to the Soldier.

A few minutes later his mind was pulled from planning and plotting as the silence was broken by the sound of the Solider gagging around the cock thrusting in and out of his throat. The man was only barely keeping from biting down on the intrusion, eyes shiny with tears as he fought to regain control of his body. The sheer surprise of the Soldier’s failure to comply with something he was so used to stunned the Commander for a few seconds. Usually the Soldier was disciplined enough that he had no trouble suppressing his gag-reflex; in fact he was used to having his nose pressed against the Commander’s groin for lengthy periods of time and would rather lose consciousness than make any move to try and get away without permission.

This behavior was unacceptable.

Pierce only barely pulled his cock out of the Soldier’s mouth before delivering a hard slap to the man’s cheek, putting the entire weight of his body behind the blow. Obviously the lack of proper discipline from his handler was making the Soldier sloppy and the Commander would not tolerate it. He didn’t let the Soldier recover from the chock of the strike, leaning forward over the man to bury his hand in the unkempt hair and yank his head backward until his throat was straining, Adam’s apple bobbing hard as he swallowed blood. There was a flash of fear in the Soldier’s eyes, gone in just a few seconds but the Commander still narrowed his eyes in anger as he caught it. Obviously agent Rogers approach was damaging the Asset and making the Soldier soft. Handlers like the former agent Allard might like seeing the Soldier cower and afraid, but that was not its optimal form. The Soldier should fear nothing, feel nothing, and be an empty vessel for the will of HYDRA.

The Commander’s erection was mostly gone as he used the hand in the Soldier’s hair to crash the back of his head into his desk a few times, where hair would cover up any mark or swelling that might occur, and as he watched the Soldier lying in a heap on the floor where he’d pushed him he didn’t really feel like working himself up to another round. The thing on the floor, tearstained eyes and shaking fingers disgusted him to the point where he was tempted to drag him off for a full wipe and re-set that second and assume the position as handler himself. He didn’t though, because he wasn’t the kind of man to act on an impulse in anger.

He was a strong believer in both punishment and revenge though, which was why he opened the door to his office to let the Soldier’s guards in from where they kept watch outside the door.

“Enjoy him.” The Commander said, gesturing toward the Soldier who had managed to collect himself and pull up a blank expression like nothing had happened, like he wasn’t terrified of the consequences of his failure. The look didn’t fool the Commander though – there were obviously flaws underneath the perfect façade that the Solider put on that needed to be dealt with. And agent Rogers needed to learn that the Solider wasn’t a pet that he could let sleep on his bed and feed treats to.

“No visible damage.” Pierce told the guards as they walked into the room, obviously exited at the prospect of blowing off steam with their charge. The guards were only allowed treats like this on special occasions to make sure that they always kept their guards up around the Soldier (and because Pierce wasn’t particularly fond of sharing his Asset with anyone) and the Commander didn’t doubt that the Soldier would learn his lesson once they were through with him.

There was one other person that needed to be taught a lesson though and molding agent Rogers into a more suitable handler wouldn’t be an easy feat. The Commander left his office in order to get some peace and quiet to formulate a plan.

 

 

**Tuesday, 04.00 PM, the Winter Soldier, Location classified, Base 4, Comm** **ander Pierce’s office**

The Soldier remains still as his guards approach. He doesn’t flinch as the first pair of rough hands grab him with little care for how much pressure is used. He isn’t supposed to feel pain, much less show weakness to such extent that he would protest.

He had already disobeyed once today. He won’t do it again.

His resolve to behave wavered as the men became more demanding with the way they touched him though. He had been ordered to remain still, yet their hands were pushing and pulling his limbs this and that way; like he wouldn’t comply instantly if they’d just _told him what to do_ , how they wanted him. Instead they were acting like he was some untrained animal, not even bothering giving him orders like he wouldn’t be able to comply with them.

He is grateful for the opportunity to practice his obedience in a truly challenging situation.

The inability to predict what his guards wants him to do makes his pulse rise and he has to fight the impulse to break out of their hold. He could do it easily – the bigger struggle is to remain obedient to his Commander. Someone pulls his head back by his hair, exposing his throat and making him vulnerable to even the dullest knife. Someone pulls at the straps keeping his uniform in place and the other men are arguing over something – the Soldier doesn’t register their words since they aren’t orders.

His head gets mashed into the stone floor a minute later, one cheek pressed to the cool surface and his neck twisted in a way that the human body shouldn’t be twisted into. But he is not human. He is a weapon.

He is grateful for the discipline and the lesson which would probably last him a long while. Make him more effective and more valuable to his handler. He needs to be disciplined one way or another, he knows this, or he won’t be of any use to his handler. Enough failures always gets him sent back on ice.

His new Handler has too much faith in him, the Soldier has concluded. The man won’t punish him because he expects the Soldier to behave anyway, without the threat of pain. He believes the Soldier to be the perfect weapon he tries to be, that he has been molded into, and that kind of Asset wouldn’t need to be punished. A rifle shoots because that’s how it works, the pulling of trigger is the order and the shot the action that follows. It doesn’t need anything else, not the promise of comfort afterward or the threat of pain. That’s how the Soldier is supposed to work. But it’s not the reality. The Soldier needs this to make sure he won’t slip up during his next mission.

He keeps quiet and compliant for the duration of the next two hours. He is grateful for each burst of pain, for each exploding nerve in his system and he pretends not to feel the tears falling from his eyes. It's alright if he can't control those - most of his handlers likes it when he cries as long as he is quiet about it.


	18. the Third Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a struggle, but your comments and kudos have kept me in the fight! Sorry for the long wait, but I am officially back on track with this one!
> 
> Also, the previous bonus-chapter has been updated as well with a few paragraphs told from the Soldier's POW, because I'm terrible and love making people cry ;)

****

All in all, the mission at Culver University was a success. Steve had to leave the Soldier in their motel-room once they got there because even if there had been any civilian clothing for the other man to change into he wasn’t the kind of man who could blend into a crowd. Steve himself was average enough that no one would notice him in a crowd of students, just another guy with sandy hair and a fitness-obsession. But the Soldier’s eyes steel eyes, his battle-ready posture and the way he radiated power and strength would definitely not have gone unnoticed. Not to mention the fact that covered in leather and Kevlar and his mask most of the Soldier’s physical features were toned down a bit. Steve could only imagine how a Henley and jeans would stretch over those defined muscles and thick thighs and immediately decided that taking the Soldier to a campus full of students was a very bad idea. Too many people would notice and remember someone like the Soldier crossing the campus and talking to professors.

So Steve had done some recon himself on the first day. The university had an Open House Event for prospect students and it was the perfect opportunity to talk to the target of their mission. It became rather obvious pretty soon that Professor Persson was not in very high standing with the university. Steve gathered that he was brilliant but believed to suffer early onset dementia and just riding out the last year of his contract with the school. His fellow professors thought he was mad and no one took his research about inter-dimensional-travel seriously, much less his ramblings about old gods from his home in Scandinavia.

Professor Persson’s closest colleague was a man named Erik Selvig and he was the only one who didn’t seem to think that Persson was going completely crazy. On the wrong track perhaps, but not crazy. Words like astrophysics went above Steve’s head completely but he managed to get a better picture once Selvig explained that life on other planets and existences that were unlike our own was a very real possibility, but the theory about parallel universes or gods that had created earth and ridden eight-legged horses were not as feasible. The man had laughed as Steve expressed an interest in Norse mythology and he was obviously not a believer or someone to worry about. “Those tales are only popular among the white supremacists back in Sweden these days.” He’d said.

Steve did worry that Selvig might be a problem if he got suspiscous about Persson’s imminent death though. The two of them had come from Sweden together and stayed friends even as Persson’s theories got more and more outlandish. He made a call to Pierce to express his concerns, adding that two deaths on campus the very same week might draw unnecessary attention to the mission and would indeed be very suspicious. Especially since the two Professors were so close. Pierce had agreed and commended Steve for his thinking and promised to send an agent to Culver to watch the Professor and make sure he didn’t look into the death of Persson too closely. One of the very best, Pierce had said, because of the threat that the rogue fraction of Hydra might pose and Steve was curious about who might be sent in but Pierce didn’t offer up a name and Steve knew better than to pry for information he wasn’t privileged to.

Returning back to the motel room had been a low point in the mission however, considering the fact that the Soldier was standing in the exact same spot as he had when Steve left that morning, “Stay here” being his last words before he left. He should have known that the Soldier would take the order _literally_. That was eight hours and a forty minutes ago, and the room was still warm from the way the sun must have been burning through the open windows.

Steve put his fist through the drywall next to the door as soon as he’d closed the curtains and locked the door, his bleeding knuckles nowhere near enough of a punishment for being so thoughtless and inconsiderate. The Soldier hadn’t flinched at the outburst but those eyes were as expressive as always, the fear of failure rising in them like a tidal wave that made Steve feel sick to his stomach. The Soldier had stayed, followed his orders despite the fact that his body worked like any human’s, and now he feared that Steve was unhappy with him anyway.

Steve had to swallow his anger, taking a few deep breaths to try and calm himself. This wasn’t about him or how he felt guilty – it was about the Soldier and making sure that he knew he wasn’t to blame for Steve’s anger. Once he was calm enough he told the Soldier that he’d done well, perfect even, and that he was proud over how well the Soldier had followed his order. He didn’t bother trying to explain that he hadn’t meant for the Soldier to literally stand still for an untold amount of hours and suffer until Steve came back, because he thought that the Soldier might turn that around on himself and think that he failed to accurately interpret Steve’s words. Better to make the man feel good about himself for once, gods knew he deserved it, and be more careful with his instructions from now on. The small frown appearing above the Soldier’s eyes told Steve (unsurprisingly) that the other man wasn’t used to hearing praise, he might not even remember ever being praised and fuck if that didn’t make Steve’s heart ache. He would have hugged the other man if it wasn’t for his aversion to touch.

So instead of initiating physical contact Steve waved the Soldier into the bathroom to relieve himself and then asked the man to strip his uniform off. Without hesitation the Soldier made quick work of the many buckles and straps covering his torso and folded it neatly on the floor in a corner, tidy and out of the way, taking up as little space as possible. The wall of solid muscle made Steve’s mouth go a little dry as he inspected the Soldier to make sure that the wounds on his back were fully healed up and no new ones had appeared. The man was truly a work of art and Steve’s fingers itched at the thought of doing a proper body-study. He hadn’t drawn anything since his mom died when he was seventeen, and he had never really cared about another human since then.

A subtle smell of sweat was coming off of the Soldier’s body as his clothes were removed and Steve thought of the room as it was exposed to the sunlight during the day again. Black leather and Kevlar didn’t go well with the summer heat, he knew from experience. Wiping a hand across his face in attempt to push aside his many failures toward the Soldier he gestured toward the bathroom again. He’d told the Soldier that the reward for a job well done was a shower, any temperature he wanted – cold if he wanted to cool off or warm if he preferred – hell, both if he wanted to. He’d told him that he was allowed to stay in for as long as he wanted but warned that the motel’s hot water would probably run out after an hour or so.

Over the spray of water Steve had heard the Soldier give a soft moan as he stepped into the shower (he must have chosen the warm water), and he let the guilt and anger from earlier wash over him again to make sure that his thoughts didn’t go elsewhere.

Taking out professor Persson wasn’t hard. Steve went down to the corner store and bought a few bottles of vodka, pouring most of the contents out on the parking lot and placed a few in the professor’s house and one in the desk at the university. Given what he had heard about the professor anyone would believe that the man had a secret alcohol-problem. Then he and the Soldier waited out the night in their motel room, Steve doing push-ups until he was sweating and his arms were shaking and a dozen more after that when the Soldier raised a challenging eyebrow at him.

Watching the Soldier take down a car was one of the most impressive things Steve had ever witnessed. The man stepped out into the road with no hesitation, standing with his feet apart and his left arm outstretched like he was a tree with miles of roots and not a man who could bleed. The collision had Steve gasping even though he knew (also from experience) that not even a military tank would be enough to fatally harm someone with the serum. The car’s front bent around the Solider and his arm like it was made of butter and not metal and the man didn’t even falter, didn’t give an inch of ground. The professor didn’t even have time to honk his horn before it was too late.

The man was still alive as Steve made his way over, the last liquor bottle in his hand. Making the barely conscious man drink a large amount of the vodka wasn’t hard, Steve just tipped his head back and poured it down his throat, stoking his throat a bit to make the muscles in it swallow on their own. He poured out some of the vodka on the man’s lap and tossed the rest of the bottle onto the floor of the passenger-seat, letting the liquid seep into the carpet. Then the Soldier loosened a piece of metal from the wreck and stuck it into the man’s abdomen, making sure to pierce the liver going in so that the man’s life couldn’t be saved.


	19. the Fourth Mission (Part I)

Two days after the mission to Culver University Steve becomes bored. While workouts had always been a good way to fill time his usual routine had been rendered unsatisfying. The Soldier could goad him into pushing his limits with a look or a raised eyebrow but Steve was itching for the real thing now. Sparring with the Soldier was the only real challenge he’d had in years and he knew that there was no other man on earth how could be a better teacher. Not to mention the fact that the more he witnessed of the Soldier’s capabilities the more he was forced to realize that the first time he had managed to beat the Soldier in a fight had been a one-off. Beginners luck, a fluke and not anything which could be accredited to Steve’s skills and capabilities. He had never really cared about being the best until he suddenly realized that he wasn’t.

Also, sparring with the Soldier had been _fun_. Seeing those sparks of personality in the other man’s eyes whenever the two of them had really gotten into it, when the Soldier seemed to slip into something other than the weapon Hydra treated him as, made Steve feel like he was rough-housing with a friend. He’d never had one of those.

But they were two days post-mission and Steve still had a lot of excess adrenaline in his system and the Commander had yet to find them an appropriate mission. So Steve decided to ignore the rule that the Commander had made about him not being allowed to spar with the Soldier.

The Soldier doesn’t hesitate to follow orders when Steve tells him to remove his combat boots and get ready. Steve is sweating and breathing hard an hour later and when he goes down for the fifth time and doesn’t get back up within three seconds the Soldier folds his arms in front of him and asks if that’s all that Steve’s got. Steve laughs through his not quite but almost bruised ribs and swipes a leg down in attempt to take the Soldier down, but the other man sees it coming and is just a bit destabilized. Steve is standing again in a heartbeat and they go at it for another two hours because Steve could do this all day.

When Steve finally has to break their exercise up because HYDRA keeps a curfew at the base and the lights are about to go out to make sure that all soldiers are well-rested he sends the Soldier off to take the first shower and the other man beams at the offered reward in a way that makes Steve warm all over. It’s a bit disorienting how well the Soldier takes to praise and rewards and Steve doesn’t understand how none of his previous handlers saw the same thing. They obviously believed that the only way to keep the Soldier in check was to have him cowering in fear and punish him even if he didn’t do anything wrong, but that smile (million-dollar, bright white and gorgeous that belongs on a billboard in Hollywood and not in an underground bunker) has Steve pretty sure that not only would the Soldier walk through fire if Steve ordered it – with the promise of a reward or even just to prove that he did good he’d do it happily.

Steve lies on the bed contemplating going to the rec-room someday soon and look around for pens and paper so that he could take up sketching again while the Zola gives him the outlines of Norse Mythology in slightly broken English. Not that Steve really believes that the HYDRA-traitors might be onto something, but know thy enemy and all that. And there are pretty interesting stories about eight-legged horses and gigantic warriors and heroes. The Soldier stays in the shower for as long as eight minutes before Steve hears the water turn off.

The Soldier has put his usual combat-attire on when he comes back out into Steve’s room but his feet are still bare and his hair is damp and curling a bit around his sharp cheekbones and he looks so relaxed. His posture is still straight and tightly held, shoulders broad and hands at his sides and free and ready to use at a moment’s notice, but he doesn’t look like someone who is ready to follow any order at the snap of fingers. He looks like a person, and he gives Steve this shy kind of half-smile as Steve meets his eyes from where he is lounging on the bed and Steve doesn’t dream about those cheekbones or that jawline that night (but he totally does).

The Soldier’s guards knock on Steve’s door to let him know that it’s time to take the Soldier back to his cage and ruins the moment that they were definitely having. The Soldier picks up on how Steve’s temper changes and grows stiff again, eyes going blank as he turns his gaze to the guards as they open the door to Steve’s room. One of them raises and eyebrow at the Soldier’s bare feet and Steve gets up from the bed and collects his combat boots from the corner and shoves them into the arms of the surprised guard with more force than needed, making the man stumble back a few steps and proceeds to glare at every guard individually to remind them that just a few days ago he killed two men who didn’t follow his orders. The party departs down the hallway without further questions pretty quickly after that.

It’s another five days before Steve is called in to Pierce’s office again and he and the Soldier receives a new mission and Steve and the Soldier spar every day. Steve claims to be hold up in his room doing research for the mission when Agent Scott bugs him about hanging out while Steve is grabbing lunch from the cafeteria. They can’t go too hard at each other because it would raise red flags if Steve was limping and it would be counterproductive to be hurt with the upcoming mission, but Steve has to admit to himself that he kind of likes it that way. The thought of hurting the Soldier even if it is for practice becomes more of a turn-off with every passing day.

The mission is to steal a piece of technology which Steve doesn’t understand anything about. Basically they are a bunch of super powerful micro-chips that Pierce wants and Steve doesn’t bother asking any further questions because he doesn’t really care anyway. If they are important to Hydra that’s enough for him. They need to replace the chips with mockups that Skye provides him with and Steve starts planning their point of entry as soon as they get in the van.

Steve is pretty confident about his plan as the team stops at a motel a few cities from their target to rest up, he and the Soldier sharing one room and Agent Scott and the other two agents who were assigned to the mission sharing another. Steve had preferred to go on the mission alone with the Soldier, especially since Agent Scott spent every minute that wasn’t devoted to mission-strategy talking Steve’s ear off about things he could care less off. Steve found himself drifting away from Scott’s attempts at making conversation to stare at the Soldier, wondering what he might get the man to talk about if they had been alone.

But before Steve can even unlace his boots and get comfortable on the bed he realizes that there’s something a bit off with the Soldier. The other man stops just inside of the locked door, eyes flipping uncertainly between the files on the mission laid out on the small corner-table and Steve and then to the ugly carpet between his feet. Steve tells the Soldier to get comfortable and to sit down and take his tactical gear off but the other man still won’t relax, eyes keeping in the same loop until Steve realizes what’s up.

The Soldier is wearing his muzzle since that’s standard protocol for missions and it’s not like Steve thinks that Agent Scott would tell on him from breaking protocol, he is pretty certain Scott would gladly help him cover up anything if it meant that Steve gave him some attention, but he doesn’t want to take any chances. The Soldier had made a move to remove his mask when he and Steve were reunited for breakfast and Steve had smiled at how comfortable the Soldier had become around him since the time they’d first met, but then he’d had to tell the Soldier keep the muzzle on for the mission and something had flickered through the man’s eyes but Steve hadn’t been able to analyze it further because the rest of the team had joined them at that point.

Steve walked over to the Soldier’s bed slowly, telegraphing all of his movements and keeping his hands by his sides, palms front so that the man could see that he wasn’t holding any weapons or something that could be used to hurt him. He stopped in front of where the Soldier was sitting at the bed, careful not to touch skin as he moved to remove the Soldier’s muzzle. He swallowed hard as his palm cupped the man’s chin, a layer of black plastic all that separated his hand from that sharp jawline and high cheekbones as he tilted the man’s head a bit in order to get to the clasp at the back of the mask. Once the muzzle came off Steve made sure he didn’t touch the Soldier as he pulled his hands back, the man so obviously tense about having Steve so close to him, before backing up several steps to give the man some space.

The Soldier still seemed uncertain about whatever he was battling with in his mind for a while after the muzzle was removed, but after daring to look Steve in the eye for a full minute that had Steve’s blood racing the Soldier finally got up from the bed and made his way over to the mission-files. He flipped through a few papers and organized two floorplans on the table while Steve watched over his shoulder. Then the Soldier gave a quick recap of Steve’s plan for entry and exit and when Steve just nodded that yeah, that was the plan, the Soldier made a face at him. An actual disapproving grimace like they were twelve year old kids and Steve had to suppress the urge to stick his tongue out in response.

“What, you think you can come up with a better plan?” Steve asked, laughter bubbling in his voice because the Soldier wasn’t really the Soldier then. He was a man, the same man Steve had seen in the tapes where the young James had auditioned for the Winter Soldier experiment. The Soldier rolled his eyes at Steve’s challenge and rearranged the papers on the table until he had the outlines of a completely different plan. And a _much_ better plan.

Steve wasn’t actually surprised by the fact that the Soldier had been able to come up with a better plan. He was more annoyed with himself for not thinking about consulting the Soldier about his own plan. It was like using a butter-knife in a fight when you had a gun next to you.

The mission is executed flawlessly. The Soldier is the embodiment of stealth and finesse as they sneak into the tech-lab where the microchips are stored and Steve realizes that if they’d gone with his initial plan they’d have hit a wall before they’d even started because of things he hadn’t accounted for. For example, he’d relied on his own strength and physical abilities without realizing that the rest of his team wouldn’t have been able to get into the building by climbing several stories up without heavy security-equipment they hadn’t brought with them from the base.


End file.
